White House reporters are considering covering the reclusive Biden, which they hope is the case with Trump
Journalists covering Joe Biden’s White House reflect on what turned out to be one of the least available presidents in modern history as they prepare to cover again one of the more accessible, if less predictable, in Donald Trump.
It turned out that Biden’s one term was defined in part by his historic decision not to seek a second term, which raised concerns about his age and mental cognition, concerns that his media team often flatly dismissed as nonsense. One White House reporter covering Biden said Fox News Digital that the issue of mental acuity is a “third rail” for the administration, a term for something too sensitive to discuss.
“This is something that you knew would put you in the penalty box if you asked or speculated, and there were a number of major publications that were more than happy to write about how Joe Biden was leading,” they said. “But somehow this issue, the central issue, didn’t come to light until the debate in Atlanta made it inevitable, and I’m not sure a lot of people patting themselves on the back deserve that.”
Biden’s team did “a really good job hiding him,” they added.
President Biden has not been as forthcoming as some White House reporters had hoped. ((AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))
“There were good days and bad days for Joe Biden, like he was on his A-game more than once. But then when it went well, it went hard. So that’s a story that I think has been overlooked, and to his detriment is the press corps,” said the White House reporter.
Biden’s White House won media praise 2021 for bringing back daily press briefings after they were held inconsistently in the Trump years. In fact, Biden’s first press secretary, Jen Psaki, has held more briefings (224) than all of Trump’s press secretaries combined (205), according to Business Insider.
But while Psaki, now an MSNBC host, and Karine Jean-Pierre have generally held consistent conversations with the press, Biden himself has been far less accessible, holding just 37 official press conferences in his four years as of Dec. 20, less of half (88) of those held by predecessor and future successor Donald Trump, according to The American Presidency Project. It was also far fewer than the 163 President Obama held during his eight years in office.
Outgoing White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. (Reuters)
Biden had 481 informal exchanges with reporters, according to the group, also far fewer than Trump’s 781 during his first four years. It was, however, far more than Obama’s 201 during his two terms.
Biden took office as by far the oldest elected president in history at the age of 78. It became increasingly clear that keeping him fenced off was a deliberate strategy, due to his tendency to occasionally put his foot in his mouth, such as when he forgot Indiana congresswoman, the late Jackie Walorski, died weeks early in 2022.
Jean-Pierre gave an unforgettable laugh to then-CNN anchor Don Lemon when he wondered in 2022 whether Biden, then 79, had the stamina to continue with a second term.
“That’s not a question we should even be asking,” Jean-Pierre said. “Just look at the work he’s doing. And look at how he’s doing it for the American public.”
Biden’s team and even some allies in the media took umbrage after special counsel Robert Hur called him “an elderly man with a failing memory” in his report released last year on his handling of classified material. They also sought to discredit a critical Wall Street Journal report on his behind-the-scenes behavior and referred to on-camera instances of the president’s advanced age as “cheap fakes,” until a disastrous presidential debate in June put such concerns in the spotlight.
President Biden’s infamous debate performance changed the narrative about his ability to serve another term. (Getty Images)
The president was widely criticized for looking and sounding fragile and listless, while repeatedly losing his train of thought in mid-sentence. While White House staff initially insisted it was just a bad night, the media spin was evident and Biden eventually dropped out of the race amid mounting pressure from powerful Democrats.
Now that Trump is returning to office, it’s hard to forget the intense, back-to-back antagonism between many White House reporters and the president who defined 2017 to 2021. Liberal CNN anchor Jim Acostawho repeatedly clashed with Trump and his spokespeople in bombastic fashion as the network’s White House correspondent at the time, even monologued last Thursday that the press was not “the enemy of the people.”
A White House correspondent told Fox News Digital that reporters should be careful not to turn every story into a national emergency once Trump returns.
“Access to Trump will be better than access to Biden because that man likes to be in the spotlight,” they said.
“We all know that after covering him for the better part of a decade. And it will be up to the press to be as aggressive and fair as possible,” the White House scribe continued. “[But] if there were reporters asking joe biden about it how polite he wasor asked a question about the real softball process right out of the gate, you know, maybe there’s a little self-reflection that’s in order before they shoot, because they didn’t cover themselves in glory when they were dealing with the Biden administration.”
The journalist added: “So if you’re going from 0 to 100, then you’d better make sure the story you’re putting out deserves that 100 mph speed.”
CAROLINE LEAVITT WILL PROMISE GREATER ACCESS TO MASSES TO TRUMP THAN THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary.
Trump announced that Karoline Leavitt will be his press secretary, making this 27-year-old the youngest person with that title in US history. Leavitt, who has been a fierce and loyal defender of Trump throughout his campaign, has promised that Trump will be more accessible to the press than Biden was.
“If you talk to the reporters sitting in that briefing room, they were incredibly frustrated with the lack of access and transparency from the Biden White House,” Leavitt told Dana Perino on “America’s Newsroom” last month.
“I can assure them of one thing, their access to the president and transparency will increase when President Trump returns to the Oval Office,” she added. “We saw that in his first term he often brought reporters into the Oval Office when he signed bills. I can expect that to continue.”
Another reporter covering the Biden White House said he was let down by his press team, adding that they knew Trump’s unit would also clash with reporters.
“President Biden has long messed things up with the press, but his staff has done everything they can to cut him off from the media,” they said. “Biden’s team decided early on to take a hostile and combative tone with the press that did the president no favors.”
As for Trump, they added: “I expect the Trump team to be combative, but that’s fine as long as they answer our questions.”
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.
