Bfinally thanks to the tradition of the White House, or perhaps just to the crescendo of tsk-tsking an aggrieved Beltway news media, Joe Biden has finally planned his first formal press conference for Thursday, March 25 – Day 64 of his new presidency.
‘It’s a problem – who are we kidding? More than two months without a press conference? Come! A White House veteran correspondent told The Daily Beast and asked not to be further identified for fear that criticism of the Biden White House could result in some sort of punishment for all the lip service to the first amendment.
“Obviously there is no equivalence between that and the way the press has been treated under Donald Trump – I think we all suffer from a stress disorder after Trump – but it stretches the boundaries of access and transparency. ‘
However, the correspondent conceded that ‘it makes perfect sense from a strategic point of view, because why would he want to ask about his predecessor all the time? Or Hunter Biden? There will always be awkward questions, no matter who is in office. But there’s an issue of responsibility here that he’s just completely screwed up. It’s half too cute. They seem to be doing this because they think it’s giving them the message. ”
Trump has held five press conferences during his presidency, although four of them were so-called ‘two-and-two’ with visiting foreign leaders, with only two papers from each country’s press corps.
Like the Washington PostPaul Farhi, media reporter, pointed out in a recent story that this surprising media embarrassment by the former looting former senator and vice president – “the longest a new president has gone without meeting the press in the last 100 years , “Farhi wrote – urged all sorts of stern admonitions from the elite of journalism.
“Americans have every right to expect him to be subjected to serious interrogation on a regular basis,” he said. Post main article. “As with previous presidents,” the Associated Press, Zeke Miller, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in a statement: “The WHCA calls on President Biden to hold regular formal press conferences.”
‘The most important thing for Biden’s success as president … is to communicate as often as possible what he does and why, and I think they do a good job of it.”
– Jay Carney, Obama’s White House Press Secretary
The National MagazineWhite House correspondent George Condon, a former WHCA president, argued that while full-fledged news conferences play a vital role in “a better understanding of the president’s thinking,” Biden White House a certain amount of space due to the logistical challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s no one more than I insist on for press conferences, but I really think you need to put this one in context,” Condon told The Daily Beast. ‘You have the reality that the White House and the Correspondents’ Association just flood every week with complaints about ‘why can we not go into the information hall’ [because of social-distancing requirements that limit the press seating to just 14]. If you get the complaints, what is the demand for an indoor press conference? This is just a very difficult situation … If it were a normal non-pandemic situation, I would be one of the loudest voices complaining. ”
Meanwhile, an official from the Biden White House, who preferred to remain anonymous, insisted that the president’s alleged disappearing act was fake news. At the long-delayed press conference, this person emailed The Daily Beast that Biden had done a CNN City Hall, Univision. [an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos], and he takes questions to the press here at the White House several times a week. ‘
Of course, Biden usually poses only one or two questions at a time, often with short answers and no follow-up, an exchange that sometimes competes with the swinging helicopter blades. Or he can answer a question while swimming when a small contingent of journalists is brought to the Oval Office for a minute or two and ‘he can not hear us half the time’, as a reporter the other day in the press of the White House complained. Secretary Jen Psaki.
“Press conferences are critical to informing the American people and holding an administration accountable to the public,” WHCA spokesman Zeke Miller said.
But is it?
“I very much welcome this Biden Press Conference reluctance,” Atlantic ocean magazine staff author David Frum, a White House speechwriter for George W. Bush, posted last week Twitter, arguing that any president is by definition a lightning rod that politically polarizes, and ‘by keeping a low profile, Biden is decaling and de-polarizing politics – a smart move’ that not only shows that ‘the presidency’ ensemble performance, not a one-man show, ‘but also that’ this highly emotional and often too talkative man [can] gather the self-discipline needed to be successful. ”
Frum also argued that presidential press conferences in general, whether gladiatorial or mere theater, contribute far less to public knowledge than unwavering journalism: “Reporters get more useful information from industry officials than they can possibly get from the president. —And less requested by performative tricks. No one ever says to a reporter, ‘Congratulations, you really lifted the IRS commissioner!’ ‘
‘I really do not think Joe Biden has anything to be afraid of.”
– A veteran correspondent in the White House
Press critic Soledad O’Brien, a longtime television journalist and documentary filmmaker, offers a typical jaundice: “It feels like the White House press – contrary to important information the president gave during his press conference – wants them that the president should show that the White House press corps is very, very important … For me, it speaks more to the White House press corps who want to see that it is very, very important and credible to ‘the American people have these questions . ‘ ‘
O’Brien added: “This idea of counting down the ‘days since’ – when you had a president [Trump] who was literally a pathological liar – it seems they [the news media] dispute over controversy, because they can only talk about these things if it is set up as a controversy. ”
However, Bill Clinton’s longtime White House Secretary of State Mike McCurry, who has been leading the Monica Lewinsky scandal (if uncomfortable), predicted that the Biden White House would eventually conclude that formal press conferences for the president were at least as beneficial. is if they are for the media.
“The process of preparing for a press conference is detailed,” McCurry told The Daily Beast. “In my time, President Clinton and Vice President Gore sat at the end of the table, and I was the inquisitor. I ask the meanest version of any question I think the press would ask. And that would usually anger President Clinton. Al Gore’s order was to calm him down. He would say, ‘Mr. President, the American people love it when the veins protrude from your neck and you turn so red in the face. That’s good! It shows energy! “And everyone will laugh. And he would calm down. ”
McCurry continued, ‘The most important point, though, is that we’re going to get the guidance we’re getting for this or that particular answer, and Clinton would always say’ it’s just bullshit, it says nothing, ‘and I would say,’ I know, but that’s where we are. ‘ And he would stop preparing for the press conference and call the cabinet secretary for whatever the issue was, and that was an action-force event. It would move policy because we had to have a better policy to talk about than whatever was suggested as the answer. The usefulness of the press conference, then, is that it actually enforces better government. ”
Regarding the frequency, or lack thereof, of formal talks between the president and the press: ‘It is worrying in the media, but not vox populi, ”McCurry said.
The view was reflected by former Obama White House press secretary Jay Carney, who was Washington’s chief of staff before the work for Time magazine and then-Vice President Biden’s communications director.
“This is a debate that is taking place in only one place – in journalistic circles in DC, and especially in the White House press corps,” said Carney, today’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs. “From the perspective, I see that they want more,” Carney told The Daily Beast, “but the most important thing for Biden’s success as president – on behalf of the people, not for any other reason – is to communicate than what he does regularly and why, and I think they do a good job at it. ”
Carney added: “What feels important in Washington or in the West Wing or in the information hall is not exactly the same as what matters to most Americans … Most people out there who are struggling, and who are exhausted by COVID, want to “Just see results. They do not care if he holds one press conference or ten press conferences … If you think your Washington critics are the same as your national critics, you will lose.”
It is not surprising that the announcement of Biden’s impending press conference did nothing to silence the dark speculation by his partisan opponents in the opposition media.
What kind of press conference will it be? Is he going to have a teleswitch? Will he know the questions in advance? Will he only appeal to friendly reporters? Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney reflected on the day. “I believe there will be a tele-trigger that you can only turn on if you need a fixed answer.”
Varney’s guest, Joe Concha, a Fox News contributor, said: “Even with the low expectations it holds for Joe Biden, as it always has with this president, it will not go well if reporters ask a firm question. difficult questions with follow-up, ”he predicted.
The wishful thinking of such lying leaders as the ousted White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows has claimed that the 78-year-old Biden is protected by his handlers simply because he is not capable of a powerful exchange on live television with aggressive working reporters.
Several Trump acolytes and election denials on Newsmax and Fox News, particularly Sean Hannity, have diagnosed the 46th president with dementia – a false allegation that was undermined by Biden’s knowledgeable and confident actions during his curious interview with Stephanopoulos.
“I really do not think Joe Biden has anything to fear,” said the White House veteran correspondent who asked not to be identified. ‘This whole thing is so strange to me that it’s become a problem. Biden held press conferences during the campaign. He’s a pro. I have no doubt that he will only be able to handle himself well. ”
On the other hand, “I think there’s an opportunity for reporters to overdo it, to go over their skis and embarrass themselves and their outlets if they have too much to do with President Biden,” the veteran correspondent said. “If Peter Doocy goes there and acts like Joe Biden is Donald Trump, it’s not going to be good for Fox News. or Peter Doocy – not that they care. ”