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A journalist called him “an honest and moral man”.
Another asked him to react to what Barack Obama had said at the funeral of John Lewis.
And many urged him to know how he would accomplish Liberal priorities.
Yesterday, with a few exceptions, President Biden’s first press conference was an easy session, failing to pin him down on important issues. Too much time wasted on process issues.
Biden did well, despite all the pre-game talk about whether he was too unruly to face the press for an hour, and he chatted too long at times (as he did. – even observed at a few points), stopped in the middle of the sentence, and strangely continued to fumble around to find the pre-established list of who he would call. And it has developed major controversies, turning a question about gun control into a discussion about infrastructure.
In short, it was nothing like a Trump bailiff.
Along with tough and pointed questions from ABC’s Cecilia Vega and NBC’s Kristen Welker, reporters were either polite, asked open-ended questions, or made it clear that they wanted him to move his agenda forward.
PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor, who spoke about Biden’s decency, asked about the mixed messages being sent to migrant families with this free pass: “How do you resolve this tension?”
After the president spent part of a long response blaming the Trump administration, Alcindor moved on to Republicans who she said were trying to “restrict” voting rights. She called on him to attack the filibuster, citing Chuck Schumer and Jim Clyburn favorably.
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CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, who quoted Obama as saying the filibuster is a “relic,” also pushed Biden on the issue. This focus on a parliamentary tactic from the Senate has left the impression that some members of the press force want the practice to be done away with so that the president can easily embrace his Democratic agenda without Republican delays.
The PA’s Zeke Miller set the tone at the top when he asked about the GOP’s “united and firm opposition” to Biden’s agenda on “immigration reform, gun control, voting rights and climate change “. But then he threw a softball, “How far are you willing to go to fulfill these promises you made to the American people?”
What is he going to say? Not far enough?
The idea that all of this “reform” is the right way forward was embedded in many of these questions. I don’t remember many reporters asking Trump how far he would go to keep his promises, when it came to initiatives like tax cuts and building a border wall.
Nancy Cordes, of CBS, returned to local Republican efforts to “restrict” the vote, saying “Democrats are concerned” that “Democrats in particular fear an impact on minority voters and younger voters. The very people who contributed to get elected in November. You fail to pass voting rights legislation, that your party will lose seats and possibly lose control of the House and Senate in 2022? ”Again, no substantive challenge, just process and policy.
Cordes elicited the most passionate response from Biden, in which he called the Republican measures “un-American,” “sick” and “despicable.” He said in some states voting would end at 5 p.m. and no one could bring water to people in line. But reporters made no effort to describe these measures or critiques of the Democrats’ bill. In fact, not a reporter has asked the president to respond to Republican criticism, other than Mitch McConnell, claiming he has only spoken to Biden once.
Cordes also asked if Biden was running for re-election in 2024, and Collins then asked if Kamala Harris would stay on the ticket – this just months after taking office. No president would declare himself a lame duck so prematurely.
On the other hand, Vega challenged the president by invoking a 9-year-old boy she had met and who had walked to the Honduran border: “Are you saying that these children are and will be allowed to? stay in this country? and work his way through that process, encouraging families “to come? Biden said he would not” let them starve “and suggested that Trump had.
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And Welker didn’t need a long liquidation period: “Are you going to commit to allowing journalists access to overcrowded facilities in the future?” Biden said he would commit, “when my very soon plan is underway.” She tried unsuccessfully to nail him on a date.
Certainly the topics, which included Afghanistan, China and North Korea, were substantive. No one asked about Biden’s dogs. But here’s the deal: Poorly worded questions and a tacit acceptance of Democratic priorities made that kind of walk easy for Joe Biden.
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