CNN+ anchor Chris Wallace probed White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki in an interview this week where he asked why President Joe Biden is “sheltered” from the press and compared him to former presidents.
“Why has President Biden been so sheltered from the press?” Wallace asked Psaki in the virtual interview.
“In what way? He just did a press conference several weeks ago. He takes questions from the press nearly every day,” Psaki responded.
“Okay. We’re gonna come back at you on that. In his first year, Joe Biden held two solo news conferences in the White House and he held five on foriegn trips. And take a look at this – in his first year, Mr. Biden sat down for 28 interviews with reporters. That compares to 95 in the same period of time for Donald Trump and 162 for Barack Obama. By comparison, Jen, that’s sheltered,” Wallace said as he showed a graphic comparing Biden, former President Trump, and former President Obama.
“Well the statistic you didn’t include there Chris is how many times did he take questions from reporters at the White House,” Psaki responded. “I think it was about double-”
“He’s had two solo news conferences,” Wallace interjected.
“No, no, beyond that. I mean, nearly every day at the White House, he [Biden] takes questions from the White House press corps, two questions, three questions, eight questions,” Psaki rebutted as she and Wallace began talking over each other.
“I’ll tell you exactly why that’s different, because when you’re standing there, you can take a question, you can answer it, you can slough it off and you move on. It in no way compares – and often times he [Biden] gives a partial answer and walks away – it in no compares to sitting down with a reporter, for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and you can’t move away, you can’t duck it. You got to sit there and answer the question and the follow-up. It’s not the same thing,” Wallace stated.
“We can agree to disagree on that, Chris,” Psaki said. She said that Biden’s approach to how he takes questions from the press derives from his time as a Senator when he would take questions after events.
“He’s done that two or three times more than his predecessors,” she added, claiming that it helps the White House reporters get more opportunities to ask the president their questions.
Watch the interview below.
Chris Wallace is correct to push Psaki on why Biden isn’t taking more questions from the press. It’s been far less than his predecessors. pic.twitter.com/BJqrn1W4aK
— Geoff Pilkington (@geoffpilkington) April 21, 2022
Reports emerged late last month that Psaki will soon depart her role as White House press secretary to join MSNBC. And as Julio reported, CNN+ will shutter later this month after launching on March 29.