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© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.For media, Biden's first news conference notable for what's missing
By DAVID BAUDER NEW YORK©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
74 Comments
PTownsend
This is worrying. The full range of media outlets need to be included.
PTownsend
After this press conference the far right media (US and 'foreign') still claiming Biden lacks the intellectual wherewithal needed to be Commander in chief should be silenced. Except of course for the likes of Tucker Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, Alex Jones, Brietbart/RT reporters etc. who will continue to try to convince their followers to believe false information 'reasonable people' wouldn't accept, i.e. their big lieS.
PTownsend
An example of the above Fox having direct and exclusive access to 45 where he could push his big lieS without being questioned. Then Fox reporters could get away with repeating 45's big lieS knowing their legal defense team would defend them claiming 'no reasonable people would believe something that wack'. Then there's 45 plugging and lauding One America News. Among so many others.
Moderator
Readers, please learn the difference between loosing and losing. It's an all too common mistake made by many contributors to the discussion board.
Bob Fosse
Oh dear. Well, you know what they say, you can’t know it all.
the_sicilian
So let me get this straight: This was the President's first news conference. There were only 25 reporters there, 10 questions were allowed total (and they were pre-screened prior to this), and not a single one was about COVID?
https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/25/after-nine-weeks-without-press-conference-biden-relies-on-pre-selected-list-of-reporters-at-first-one/
https://thepalmierireport.com/biden-calls-on-pre-selected-reporters-during-first-press-conference/
https://greatamericanpolitics.com/2021/02/biden-white-house-press-office-caught-pre-screening-press-briefing-questions/
No matter which side you are more in favor of, this is not good. If the US has a free and open press, why were there only pre screened and selected reporters there? This does not bode well for the future.
Jsapc
The websites you use are clearly showing your bias. You should try reading something less mind-blowingly right-wing too once in a while.
Jsapc
What in god's name are you even talking about?
Desert Tortoise
I miss the days when the US had a law called the Fairness Doctrine. Many here are probably not old enough to remember the difference in how the media behaved then and now. The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated during the Reagan administration which is 40 years ago now. Reportage was better, there was usually an editorial by a senior manager of the station and stations were required by law to offer the opposing point of view to be given, on the air. Sometimes the person giving the opposing view as clearly uncomfortable being on life TV but often it was well delivered by someone who gave some thought to what they were going to say. It was all done politely and by requiring the opposing view to be heard, stations were kept honest and didn't descend into partisan echo chambers. The Fairness Doctrine applied to radio as well with similar results.
itsonlyrocknroll
Watch live: President Biden holds first press conference — 3/25/21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_6BhfTDw4Q
Not a particularly challenging first press conference for Joe Biden.
ulysses
He didn’t spend half of question time complaining about how badly he was being treated, so I guess it was a good start.
The one about the GOP not being around in 2024 was hilarious and will probably burn a lot of trump boys..
Jimizo
He was being hit with feather dusters.
Wolfpack
The media back to playing slave to their masters in the Democrat party. Pre-approved questions and rehearsed answers is the usual Biden routine. Nothing about how he assumes white supremacy at the drop of a hat, nothing about Cuomo’s #MeToo problem- not to mention his own. No questions about the kids in cages down at the border, the release of border crashes into the country without court review or covid tests.
Goodlucktoyou
Democracy ahhhh. Social media blocks trump, backtrack on policies (lie) and hand pick journalists. China anybody?
ulysses
President Biden uttered more complete sentences in today’s conference than donald uttered in his entire presidency!!!!
Kaerimashita
Wow! Pretty unimpressive stuff. Some of it almost a parody. Poor the States if this is the best we can do.
bass4funk
In the SNL sense?
So being unable to speak at times and speaking incoherently and being confused is now seen as being an adult?
That was a horrible train wreck and if you listen closely you could even hear some of the gasps when the guy was speaking. This was just horrible and sad to watch.
Bjorn Tomention
Masquerade is all, rehearsed, prepared, prescreened journalists to make sure they only asked nice things and no confrontation style questions to put the Pottyus in a difficult situation.
Its a joke but expect nothing less from the democrats to try to cotton wool the old guy.
bass4funk
Exactly, not to mention Biden reading line by line and going over his prepared speech notes and to call the friendly only selected reporters. Any other conservative hard hitting relevant questions weren’t even asked. Trump at least to his credit answered all of these people, miss the sparing. Biden is just not capable of that, he’s not that quick enough.
Attilathehungry
Given how low the bar was set fro Pres. Biden, he did manage to survive his first "grilling" by the press.
It was remarkably non-spontaneous though. I have never seen a president refer to prepared notes the way that Biden did. It really makes it seem that the questions were pre-selected, as were the reporters. Even with those stipulations in place, he still managed to sound tired and wooden.
Compare this to the raucus and adversarial nature of a Trump press conference, with the president engaging directly with the press and handling the back-and-forth with multiple reporters shouting at him.
bass4funk
Looking like a deer caught in the headlights, well, yes.
Trump didn’t stumble, he may have said, nutty things at times, but he didn’t stop, stare or look confused and bewildered, didn’t sweat and didn’t try to focus the way Biden did, big, big difference.
Huh? So you’re saying that Biden was going down in flames? Well, I think so...
Jimizo
No he didn’t. He often pulled his smacked arse face and called them fake news.
Better than talking about injecting bleach at press conferences I suppose.
bass4funk
Not very well, especially today...again, listen to the gasps and this from a more Biden friendly press.
speaking coherently qualifies as relevant, what happened today was anything but..
That was Biden and the heart- wrenching thing about it was, the guy wasn’t even trying...
I don’t even think he knew he was on stage, those silent moment proved that.
HimariYamada
"Joe Biden's first presidential news conference was notable for what was missing after predecessor Donald Trump: no contentious exchanges with reporters, no Fox News and no questions about COVID-19."
Sounds like China.
No questions about Covid 19 or Tibet.
bass4funk
Because he didn’t tow the liberal line, Biden didn’t tow any line, he couldn’t even get on the tractor.
Hardly, he was pretty much specifics issues when it came to immigration, DACA
If he did, he would have been more transparent, especially about the border and these facilities keeping these kids..
After the news conferences, yes.
PTownsend
Readers: Please learn the difference between 'tow' and 'toe'. I'm aware that poorly educated first language speakers confuse them.
Ego Sum Lux Mundi
ModeratorToday 07:40 am JST
Well said and thank you for finally taking someone to task over this. Another common mistake is writing "noone" for "no one", which always makes me think of Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits.
lincolnman
Wow, what a difference a few months can make....
After four years of outright lies, two-year old tantrums, and lines like; "it's totally under control, it's just one person from China, it will all be fine"....we finally get competence, honesty, and maturity....
While the Repub party self-implodes...and Trump's taxes and the Trump Org finances get fine-toothed by a former John Gotti prosecutor...
No wonder they want to keep talking about Dr Seuss...
bass4funk
Biden couldn’t even keep the press focused.
DACA was started under Obama without the approval of congress. So much for the legislative branch.
Bur when Obama did it and Biden TOLD these people to come, that’s ok, I understand Trump’s position, they shouldn’t be here and they should go back. Joe and Barrack were saying come all, but then put them in cages and pretended to spin to the media that the kids are ok when we saw the latest video that they’re not. Like I said, I don’t believe any Washington politician when it comes to the border, I believe the CBP and the video over some political act in an air conditioned room hoping that I’ll believe his spin on the issue.
Biden can’t even do that much!
Pukey2
So refreshing to see an adult there, and no tantrums. And no stories about 'Someone came up to me and said, Sir......'
ulysses
The problem with trump's boys is that they think a press conference without a temper tantrum, lies, obfuscation and nastiness to the press, is not a press conference.
It might take time for them to get used to rational, mature & normal behavior but I am fully confident they will!!!!
lincolnman
I only wished Biden would have mentioned Sidney Powell and her defense in her defamation case filed by Dominion...
*Powell goes so far as to say that "reasonable people would not accept such statements as true"...*
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/24/opinions/sidney-powell-defense-big-lie-opinion-rodgers/index.html
She admits to The Big Lie - it was all a scam and a fraud...and essentially called all Trump supporters who believed it "unreasonable"....or stupid enough to fall for it...
This story needs to be told - it might help de-program some of the cult...
Texas A&M Aggie
The world witnessed a true dumpster fire that masqueraded as a presidential press conference. You know it was bad when Biden gets called out for embellishing the, uh, truth by a CNN 'fact checker".
theFu
The new guy seems different from the old guy, but still has trouble with facts: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/factchecking-bidens-first-press-conference/
The summary:
Nobody's perfect.
bass4funk
I’m saying he’s acting like typical Biden, but much worse and I thought it couldn’t get worse, but I was wrong.
And Obama bypassed the legislative branch on DACA and that’s how this mess started, so back in 2014 when his administration were putting kids in cages, the media was dead silent...hmmm.
Where literally thousands of immigrants were scared to come over, they were saying that over and over in a lot of interviews, walls work, ask the politicians that surrounded themselves in a giant fence surrounding the Capitol.
He did, but the Dems put road blocks to try and stop the wall, it’s documented and ask any CBP agent. Oh, that’s right, the liberal press never wants to talk to these border patrol agents, goes against their open door policy rhetoric.
He can get tired more easily than Trump so I give him credit.
ulysses
That defense is hilarious!!!
The only problem is that donald's bigots are not reasonable, rational people.
If they were reasonable and rational they wouldn't be donald's bigots!!!!
Bob Fosse
Yeah. ‘Sleepy Joe’ who is now President, won the election fair and square by a considerable margin and is cleaning the mess up very nicely. ‘Sleepy Joe’ wiped the floor with you.
Why don’t we hear about election fraud anymore? Afraid of lawsuits? Even Sidney is now saying in her defense that she was just theorizing and that no reasonable person would believe her “theories” about Dominion and all that other nonsense.
“Reasonable” people. Uh-huh.
GdTokyo
So, all those memes saying Biden is not in command of the issues and is an addled old man didn’t age too well.
bass4funk
Meaning, the guy was bad when I was a kid and it just seems to worsen with each passing day
With DACA, yes, along the border that was the Democrats.
EXACTLY! See, walls do work, ask the politicians in Washington at the Capitol and the ones that have bige fences.
No, I'm saying the Dems are purposely incompetent to not seal the border, you can add reckless and heartless to those acolytes.
All the more reason in understanding as to why Biden is not up for the job.
Strangerland
I can't believe the Pubs kicked the immigration problem on to the next administration, and left it for the dems to deal with.
The modern history of the US is a back and forth of Republicans wrecking things, then the democrats getting blamed for the pain of fixing them.
Jimizo
Non-existent walls which Mexico didn’t pay for don’t.
bass4funk
Ok, we have Biden now NOT Trump, and given his disastrous diatribe or whatever that was, how do you think he will handle transparency from now on?
Yeah, they do, the Mexican government admitted that illegals have been saying that. No one with a Trump shirt tried to come down while he was in office and particularly the CBP said so, I tend to trust the people working the border over some political hit in Washington on the other side of the country writing and trying to tell their sidekick msm pundits that kids not bathing and sleeping on top of each other is a normal thing. Nice try.
In other words, so what if the country is screwed now and China, the growing and real threat serious threat are laughing their butts off at this guy. This is all too easy.
But babbling and incoherent, that's scary as hell, very, very scary.
Strangerland
It was interesting that Biden followed Trump's lead on not calling on fake-news outlets.
I guess that's the new name of the game in politics. Once again, the pubs are whining about a situation they created.
It's their MO.
PTownsend
If Biden starts rambling on about the US bombing British air bases in the 19th century, if he suggests nuking hurricanes, if he suggests injecting a disinfectant, if he shares his hallucinations seeing thousands of Muslims dancing in New Jersey after 9/11, then I'll start to worry. Trump set the lowest bar - ever.
Jimizo
Looking at US presidents in my lifetime based on ability to speak, not performance in office:
Carter - Very articulate.
Reagan - A good communicator but his brain was in severe decline and could descend into drivel.
Bush 1 - Generally spoke gibberish.
Clinton - Very articulate.
Bush 2 - Didn’t have a grasp of basic grammar a non-native speaker could manage.
Obama - Very articulate.
Trump - Babbled incoherently and lied non-stop. Could contradict himself in the space of one sentence.
Biden - Mind on the decline. Stumbles with words.
The US has survived presidents talking gibberish. The lion’s share coming from the GOP in modern times. No need to panic.
Strangerland
Who cares what he sounds like, if he's an effective president?
See, the pubs think that being able to get a bunch of people excited is the qualification for being a good leader. It's why Trump was baffled that he lost, even though he had crowds of sycophants kissing the ground he walked upon.
Biden's leading through competence.
But hey, keep whining about him being more coherent than Trump or Bush 2 ever were. That's what the country needs. Or maybe you could whine about health care, and your supposed replacement a little more.
Strangerland
Trump kicked the China problem down the road for future administrations.
What a loser.
bass4funk
Yeah, but people feared him at least people knew the guy was unpredictable, but now back to Biden as the President, you think China fears this man? Russia definitely doesn't. By the way, he still is avoiding Putin, not good.
So when will the press be allowed to see these kids, even Jake Tapper was annoyed by the lack of access.
Well, not everyone has one and by the time they use those, the CBP are on them like flies on turd, so it's a deterrent, like your dog or even the door on your house.
Ahhh, then why didn't all these kids in the detention center scale the wall? Ahhhh, gotcha!
He did, that's why China was so ticked off and did what they could to get him out of office and No President ticked them off or refused to bow to them, unlike this President and the other previous Presidents.
starpunk
Fox News and the media wingnuts aren't man enough to talk with or listen to a real POTUS. They want to keep making up fairy tales in order to feel 'cool' or 'on top'. They're juvenile idiots that just can't handle the fact that America has a real President again, one who won't sass off like a 7 year old lippy-ass punk.
SuperLib
Covfefe.
ulysses
By donald's standards, a press conference where reporters are not insulted, minorities not demonized and women not objectified, is a success.
ulysses
And those who criticize Biden for having a briefing book, at least he was not suggesting injecting bleach or shining lasers where the sun dont shine.
if donald used a briefing book he would have said something truthful, for once!!!