Press Secretary Shields President Joe Biden from Basic Questions: White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre has proved to be a wily and cagey press secretary.
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All mouthpieces of presidents do everything they can to shield their bosses from controversy and negative press, but Jean-Pierre has taken this media strategy to a new level.
Lately, she has particularly frustrated the White House media pool and has been forced to answer charges that she engages in over-protection of President Joe Biden.
Building a Wall Around the President
On April 10, she was forced to answer a painful query – “Is the administration trying to protect the president from our questions? Please answer that question,” one reporter admonished her.
Jean-Pierre denied this was the case. “Absolutely not. Absolutely not,” Jean-Pierre said.
What About Official New Conferences?
Another scribe had asked previously during that day’s briefing why the president fails to hold his own press conferences. Then the press pool demanded to know why Biden had no plans to address the media during his trip to Ireland that he will embark on soon.
Jean-Pierre claimed Joe Biden answered shouted questions, but that did not appear to assuage the reporters. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, often took numerous journalist inquiries while boarding and leaving the presidential helicopter.
“But certainly, the president, many times, has stood in front of all of you, has taken questions on his own because he wanted to see what was on your minds. He wanted to see what the questions you all were going to ask him, and he wanted to answer them directly. That has happened multiple times, many times, during this administration. And that will certainly continue to be. When it comes to a formal press conference, I don’t have anything to share with you at this time,” she said.
The Campaign From His Basement
Joe Biden has been avoiding direct contact with the media since his campaign for president against Trump. He ran for office mostly in the basement of his home during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019 and 2020. He was able to shield himself from direct questioning by the media that normally would have happened during public events on the campaign trail.
Propensity to Struggle in Front of the Media
The president is a self-described gaffe machine with a penchant for saying things that do not make sense.
He often carries instructions from his staff about which reporters to call on and how many questions to take during the rare times when he is available to the media.
The White House press corps is demanding that Jean-Pierre make the president answer questions in formal settings when journalists can see and hear Biden without the interference of his spokeswoman. Jean-Pierre maintained that the president often has questions shouted at him, which has occurred more frequently than other presidents.
On April 10, Jean-Pierre said no formal news conferences with the president were scheduled.
In his first year in office, Biden held only nine press briefings, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara. Trump did 22 in 2017, and Barack Obama conducted 27 in his first year in office.
When it comes to direct press interviews, Biden did 21 in that first year, compared to 92 that Trump had delivered and 156 that Obama held, UC-Santa Barbara’s Institute for the Presidency found.
Thus, reporters have been frustrated with the Biden administration’s communication practices. This came to a head last month when Jean-Pierre promised that the president would answer questions during the Irish prime minister’s visit to the White House.
Reporters were looking for a better opportunity to ask inquiries that Biden would actually answer. But one journalist said, “He never answers questions during those periods.”
There is really nothing the White House press corps can do to convince Jean-Pierre to make the president available for questioning. The communications office is not willing to allow Biden to speak to the press that much. This is bad for democracy when the president is shielded from the media. Most presidents are elected because they are particularly adept at media relations. This president would instead not take any questions, and this reduces the level of basic transparency journalists expect when they are simply trying to do their jobs.
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Author Expertise and Experience:
Serving as 19FortyFive’s Defense and National Security Editor, Dr. Brent M. Eastwood is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Foreign Policy/ International Relations.
