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Members of the White House press protested to Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday after President Biden refused to answer questions during the public portion of his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – even after Johnson introduced himself to Biden calling two British journalists questioning and the US president.
After a brief conversation for the cameras in which the two leaders bonded around their mutual love for train travel and Johnson thanked Biden for welcoming him, the PM asked, “I think – would – what if we just have a few questions? Just a – just a few questions.
“Good luck,” Biden said casually.
Johnson first called Harry Cole of the Sun newspaper, who asked Biden about the prospect of a UK-US trade deal after Brexit was completed as well as Anne Sacoolas’ status, a US government worker who killed a 19-year-old motorcyclist. Harry Dunn in a reverse accident in England in 2019.
“What possible justification is there for Anne Sacoolas not to be extradited to the UK to face justice for the death of Harry Dunn?” Cole asked.
Biden initially responded that the case “is in the process of being worked out” before later admitting “I don’t know the status of this at this time.”
On Tuesday, Dunn’s family announced that a civil case against Sacoolas in federal court in Virginia had been “resolved.” A criminal case is pending against her in Britain, although successive US administrations have refused to extradite her to that country, citing diplomatic immunity.
The second speaker, Beth Rigby of Sky News, asked Biden about the issues surrounding the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and their threat to a possible trade deal. The UK has resented trade deals that have imposed controls on goods from the rest of Britain coming from Northern Ireland. These arrangements were made in order to keep an open land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland – a key issue in the ongoing peace process in that country.
“On the deal with the UK this continues to be discussed,” Biden said. “But on the [border] protocols, I am very attached to these. We have spent a tremendous amount of time and effort in the United States [on the 1998 Good Friday agreement]. It was a major bipartisan effort made. And I – I wouldn’t at all like to see – and I might add, many of my Republican colleagues would like to see – a change in the Irish courts that – the end result [would be] have a closed border again.
After Johnson expressed that his government did not want to undermine the Good Friday deal, White House aides – known as “wranglers” – started yelling and dragging reporters out of the Oval Office as ‘they were trying to ask more questions of the couple. A correspondent, Ed O’Keefe of CBS News, asked Biden about the ongoing migration crisis on the southern border.
“The violence is not justified,” replied the president as the last members of the press were led outside. However, O’Keefe claimed he couldn’t hear the answer due to the wranglers screaming.
“This is absurd,” growled a reporter as they left the executive mansion. “Two British journalists get questions and we get nothing.”
CBS News Radio White House correspondent Stephen Portnoy reported that members of the editorial group immediately went to Psaki’s office to complain “that no American journalist was recognized for questions in the Oval Office of the president “as well as the war criers had prevented anyone from understanding. the answer to O’Keefe’s question.
“Psaki was unaware that the incident had occurred and suggested that she was unable to offer an immediate solution,” Portnoy reported. “Your pooler has requested a press conference. Psaki suggested that the president answer questions several times a week.
In fact, Biden did not respond to questions on a number of issues that have arisen in recent days, including the ongoing diplomatic row with France over the strategic alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom. Australia; and the Pentagon’s admission last week that a drone strike in the final days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan killed 10 innocent people, including an aid worker and seven children.
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