“Working is part of who you are,” Biden told Michele. “I have long said that the idea that we think we can keep our businesses open and moving and thriving without dealing with this pandemic is just a non-start.”
The informal conversation on camera between the two is a break with the precedent of the past, where previous presidents have used the weekly address to deliver pre-written speeches.
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the recharging of the weekly address, renamed “Weekly Conversation”, was part of Biden’s effort to “communicate regularly directly with the American people”, especially those affected by the pandemic.
“We expect it to take different forms,” Psaki said.
The video is a new version of an old tradition that has been interrupted since former President Donald Trump stopped recording it in 2018. Here’s how previous presidents have used – and modernized – the medium during their tenure to communicate with Americans:
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President Franklin D. Roosevelt began giving his famous “fire talk” on the radio to explain what the government was doing to address the economic catastrophe caused by the Great Depression and later World War II.
According to the White House Historical Association, FDR’s addresses allowed FDR to bypass the press to contact Americans directly.
Ronald Reagan
The radio addresses were abandoned by FDR successors until President Ronald Reagan, a former actor and radio broadcaster, revived them during his presidency. (President Jimmy Carter ran a dial-up radio program in 1977 with calls from across the country, earning him the mockery of Saturday Night Live.)
Reagan began giving weekly radio broadcasts in 1982, a practice that continued among most future presidents. (President George HW Bush recorded only 18 during his tenure.)
George W. Bush
President George W. Bush was the first to deliver his weekly speeches in English and Spanish.
As the Internet and listening to music became ubiquitous in American culture during the 2000s, the Bush administration adapted to changing viewing habits and began posting weekly addresses as downloadable podcasts, the first time the broadcasts were streamed online. is.
Barack Obama
President Barack Obama builds on Bush’s technological advances and becomes the first president to post videos of his weekly speeches during his inauguration.
The videos, which were posted almost every Friday and in which the president speaks directly with a camera, were made available on the White House’s YouTube page.
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump continued the weekly video addresses on YouTube when he took office, but the tradition was quietly discontinued during his presidency of less than two years.
Trump, who prefers to share his thoughts directly with Americans on Twitter, continued to post short, infrequent video addresses on key topics on White House social media accounts for the rest of his term.