Politico’s Alex Thompson, working with Mark Knoller, crunched the numbers and found that President Joe Biden has participated in just 10 interviews compared to 131 for Barack Obama and 57 for Donald Trump at the same point in their presidencies:
NEW: at this point in 2009 and 2017, Obama had done 131 extensive interviews and Trump had participated in 57
Biden has done just 10
None since Labor Day and just 1 since May
Our look at why Biden’s not doing extensive 1 on 1’s w/ reporters https://t.co/pi3ol8Dt8P pic.twitter.com/eA7pkZvnKN
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
And Biden isn’t even keeping up the pace from his days as Vice President:
Biden is also lagging behind his pace as VP where’d he’d done at least double the number of interviews he’s done so far by this point.
He occasionally appeared on all 3 network morning shows on the same day
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
We really need more reporting Mark Knoller:
Special thanks to @markknoller, a fabulous reporter who kept track of these numbers and supplied them for the piece.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
According to Thompson, the White House is doing this on purpose and feels the “only downside is the constant scolding from the press”:
The WH has calculated that the politics are better not to do lots of extensive sit downs
A WH official argued that the D.C. press is too focused on process which is not the message Biden wants to get to voters anyway
The only downside is the constant scolding from the press
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
They even think the scolding could make Biden more popular:
And no voters care if reporters are mad. cud make Biden more popular.
But it’s notable that Biden has not done any extensive interviews w/ reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, or Reuters.
Of the 10, 7 are TV
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
Imagine if a Trump official had said all of this though?
The WH official argued that they preferred TV because of reach, along with obsession about process from DC reporters
The only print interviews biden has done was a joint FLOTUS People Magazine one, a David Brooks column, and @IsaacDovere’s book right after the inauguration
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
And of late, he isn’t even taking these after-the-event questions, hence all the photos of Biden walking away:
Biden’s team is quick to note that he often takes questions from reporters after he does events—and he does it more often than past presidents
But they’ve not seen a need to do the many extensive 1-1’s when reporters can probe, follow up etc.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) October 19, 2021
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