He can end it whenever he likes.īut even though nobody has ever sunk his administration by gaffeing at a presser-consider all the nutty things President Donald Trump said at his press conferences!-the format induces performance anxiety in most presidents. He decides who gets called on and can cut a reporter off almost at will. A reasonably prepared president can dull or blunt even the sharpest question from a skilled interrogator like Kaitlan Collins of CNN or Weijia Jiang of CBS News if he puts his mind to it. “I will mount the usual weekly cross and let you drive the nails,” said Eisenhower in 1953 as he solicited questions at a presser.īut how painful is the experience? Nobody becomes president without having first applied themselves to the arts of parry and deflection on the campaign trail, so a presidential press conference isn’t the first plunge for any of them. With the possible exception of Kennedy, who waltzed and quipped through his press conferences, presidents seem to dread them. They often include footage unavailable to the press.” As Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote for POLITICO in 2013, Obama’s people busied themselves producing in-house photos of the president, videos of White House officials and blog posts by presidential aides and other substitutes for journalism that could “be instantly released to the masses through social media. If Biden decides to go the full Obama, he’ll do what his predecessor did and fill the news stream with editorial content of the White House’s own making. Bush, or Bill Clinton had during their presidencies, as historian Harold Holzer writes in his recent book, The Presidents vs. President Barack Obama famously avoided press conferences by holding only 36 of them in his first term, fewer than Ronald Reagan, George H. Biden must be asking himself: Why break a sweat running when coasting is what got you to where you always wanted to go?īy limiting his direct exposure to the scrutinizing powers of pressers, Biden has followed the example of his former boss. According to a fresh POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, 62 percent of registered voters give Joe their approval. As he discovered during the presidential campaign, the less people saw him, the more they liked him, and the more they liked him, the more willing they became to vote for him, and all the baying in the world is not going to cause Biden to unlearn that lesson. That’s because if you’re Biden, press conference avoidance has been a winning political strategy. Kennedy’s presidency that the events were carried live on television. Eisenhower’s first administration, and even then the video elements were subject to White House review and approval before release. This so-called “right” to see the president answer questions did not exist in theory or practice until late in President Dwight D. “People have a right to see their president regularly answering questions,” ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl told the Washington Post this week. The press conferences aren’t really for reporters, the reporters would have you believe, but for citizens. Presidential accountability, say the pressies, demands that the chief executive stand and deliver at prescribed and frequent intervals. If you’re a reporter, Biden’s press conference avoidance has been an outrage. He finally acknowledged the yelping this week-maybe Champ and Major conveyed the press hounds’ consternation to him-by finally scheduling a presser for March 25. He has kept them waiting so long, he now owns the record for the longest a new president has gone without holding such a presser. Like kenneled dogs who have missed a feeding, White House reporters have been growling and barking over President Joe Biden’s failure to hold a formal press conference since being sworn in. Jack Shafer is Politico ’s senior media writer.
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