The Newsmax Chief’s Curious Support of Joe Biden

 By Jon Friedman, May 25, 2022

Did you also find it peculiar that Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy, a lion of the right and a scourge of the left, recently made a show of giving President Joe Biden high marks for his handling of Ukraine?

“I believe Joe Biden gets an ‘A’ for his current handling of the Ukraine crisis,” Ruddy wrote for Newsmax  on May 11.

He went on to point out that Biden’s decision to sign into law the Ukraine Democracy Defense Land-Lease Act of 2022 (try saying that three times fast!) represented a “measure designed to streamline U.S. support for that country.”

Let’s unpack this: In these highly polarized times, one of former President Donald Trump’s most loyal conservative supporters went out of his way to heap praise on Trump’s

sworn foe, Biden. This is, of course, the same Sitting President that Trump and his cohorts loudly (and, yes, falsely) accuse of occupying  1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on fall pretenses.

A Nice Guy

Let’s get this out of the way: I like Chris Ruddy. Whatever you (or I, for that matter) might conclude about the right wing’s shrill stances, Ruddy is, putting it prosaically, inherently a nice guy. I should know.

You see, I wrote a freelance popular-culture column for Newsmax from 2009 to 2014, at Ruddy’s invitation. My work there ended a full year before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president. Newsmax was most definitely aligned with the right, but had not yet exhibited full-throated support for Trump. Since Trump was not yet a presidential candidate, there was no need for a media outlet to take up his causes.

I had interviewed Ruddy on camera for my former employer, MarketWatch.com, in February 2009. We had a congenial chat. He subsequently offered me the freelance gig, and I accepted, with my boss’s blessing. I guess Ruddy valued my company beyond a strictly employee level, because he even invited me to accompany him and his allies to watch a New York Yankees game in a private box at Yankee Stadium (History will note that I met Graig Nettles, a Yankee great in the 1970s, that evening!). But I digress.

A Glimmer of Hope

Getting back to Ruddy’s curious approval of Biden’s Ukraine policy, why would he do it? I believe he is sincere – perhaps he simply wanted to voice his support for the embattled and courageous nation. But he could also have written a column saying that explicitly, and that alone, and not going out of his way to promote Biden.

It’s too early to reach any conclusions about Ruddy’s initiative. That would be like definitively picking the next World Series winner in April. Time will tell if his piece signals a genuine desire to step across the red-blue divide and try to bring people together.

Perhaps Ruddy will soon start word-slamming Biden, in the fashion of Republican-oriented media everywhere. Maybe this gesture will fade into the ether, and we won’t feel a need to bring it up again.

But I would like to think there is a glimmer of hope that other right-wing media will feel encouraged to act with similar fairness. And if one of Ruddy’s brethren believes Biden (or Speaker Pelosi, for instance) has done something warranting praise, they’ll deliver it.

And, so, I will respond to Ruddy in kind and say, good going, Chris. We need red and blue leaders to lower the volume in these trying times.

Keep it up.

Jon Friedman, who wrote Jon Friedman’s Media Web column for MarketWatch.com for more than 13 years, is an adjunct professor and lecturer. These views are his own.