President Joe Biden (D) avoids extemporaneous conversations and free-flowing question and answer sessions like the plague. This irritates the press.
A longtime Washington correspondent told Fox News Digital the expectation that Biden should stand before reporters and consistently answer questions was “pretty basic.”
“I think there’s a lot of frustration that there have been so incredibly few press conferences and so few opportunities generally to ask questions of the president,” they [sic] said. “It’s a fundamental thing. You know that the press corps has a job and it’s not just reporters trying to get questions asked for their own personal well-being…. You’re representing your viewers and your readers and your listeners.”
Added a White House correspondent: “There are serious concerns in the White House press corps about the way staff are hiding the president…. I would be surprised if Biden has another full solo press conference again in the remainder of his political career.”
How precious.
It’s certainly true that Biden speaks with the press as little as possible. However, we ordinary Americans don’t need the self-important press to act as our filter, or our DC watchdogs, or acting self-appointedly as our representatives—we elect our own representatives every couple of years—screening political doings and “reporting” what these august personages deem fit for our tender eyes and ears.
The real problem with Biden’s avoidance isn’t that he doesn’t interact freely with journalists, it’s that he won’t interact, freeform or otherwise, with his actual constituents, us American citizens. He won’t do townhalls with locals, he won’t do unscripted—and unscreened by his aides—interactions in diners, libraries, rec centers, not even ice cream parlors, places where us individual citizens could talk with him, ask him our questions and get his answers impromptu.
Biden avoids us like the plague, and that’s what matters.
The press’ anguished irritation over their limited time with Biden is singularly unimportant while being a strong measure of the journalists’ oblivious self-importance.