Outrage as Biden campaign aide pressures Maureen Dowd to alter President's 'goodest' gaffe in NYT column

WASHINGTON, DC: New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd revealed that a campaign aide working to help re-elect President Joe Biden asked her to remove a verbal gaffe from one of his media appearances.

TJ Ducklo, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, contacted Dowd after she published a commentary that referenced Biden using the word “goodest” which they later revised the transcript to reflect “good as” during an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Campaign aide asked Maureen Dowd to alter Joe Biden's ‘goodest’ gaffe

President Joe Biden appeared to use the non-word while discussing how he would feel if he stayed in the presidential race but lost to former president Donald Trump. “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Biden said, according to Dowd’s column.

Following the publication, ABC News, at the request of the White House, revised the transcript to indicate that Biden actually said “good as.”

The New York Times subsequently updated Dowd’s Saturday column to reflect the change made by ABC News. However, in her Sunday column, Dowd included the original “goodest” quote, leading Ducklo to request a correction.

Dowd wrote that Ducklo asked her to “tweak” the column, change the word "goodest" to make the piece "consistent with the corrected transcript", even though the revised version was also gobbledygook,” the New York Times reported.

Dowd stated that she informed Ducklo that they would communicate his concerns to their editor. "Yeah again, it’s not what I think. It’s what ABC News, who conducted the interview, thinks," Ducklo reportedly replied.

"I think it would be quite unusual if the Times asserted the president said something that the news organization who conducted the interview says he didn’t say..."

When Dowd questioned whether the Biden campaign pressured ABC News to alter the transcript, Ducklo responded, “ABC News, like any news organization, makes their own independent editorial decisions. Surely you are not suggesting otherwise.”

He later confirmed that ABC News had reviewed the tape and corrected the transcript.

Despite the pressure to conform to the revised transcript, Dowd criticized the President’s response, writing, “Whatever the president meant, his answer to that question went over like a lead balloon. No one cares if he feels good about himself in a losing cause.”

She further suggested that “maybe the White House should think about closed captioning.”

TJ Ducklo's recent controversy follows his 2021 resignation

This controversy comes after TJ Ducklo's resignation from his role as White House deputy press secretary in February 2021. He had made headlines for threatening a reporter working on a story about his relationship with journalist Alexi McCammond.

Ducklo had vowed to “destroy” Tara Palmeri’s career and accused her of jealousy over his relationship with McCammond.

McCammond, now an opinion editor for The Washington Post, recently called Ducklo “toxic” on TikTok, referring to him as “the smallest man alive” in a caption, invoking a Taylor Swift song.

The Washington Post has sought comment from the New York Times, ABC News, Ducklo, and the White House regarding the recent incident.

Biden admin slammed for pressuring Maureen Dowd to alter words

After it was revealed that President Joe Biden's campaign aide asked Maureen Dowd to alter the "goodest" gaffe in her column, social media users slammed the administration.

One social media user tweeted, "We are living in either a sequel of Weekend at Bernie’s or the Truman show. I can’t figure out which one it is right now."

Another asked, "Why are they all covering up his crap ??????"

One person said, "Disgusting @TDucklo."

"More censorship from Democrats," read one tweet.

"Oh now they are telling on him," penned an individual.

"These people are not used to being called out by the press....it is GLORIOUS," said one person.

"The most corrupt administration in history," tweeted another.

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