Democrat President Joe Biden received a lot of criticism following his press conference on Thursday over his use of notes, as well as over a photo showing that Biden had seemingly pre-selected reporters to call on.
Fox News host Chris Wallace, a registered Democrat, said that he was “struck by the fact that it seemed on every foreign policy question, not the others, but on foreign policy, he went to his briefing book like Jen Psaki does sometimes in the briefings, and was reading obviously White House guidance, White House talking points.”
“Covering Ronald Reagan for six years, I never saw that,” Wallace continued. “Watching a lot of news conferences over the years, I’ve never seen that — a president in a news conference reading talking points. He did that on, it seemed, every foreign policy question.”
WATCH:
Fox News’ Chris Wallace: "I was also struck by the fact that it seemed on every foreign policy question… [Joe Biden] went to his briefing book… and was reading obviously White House guidance, White House talking points. Covering Ronald Reagan for 6 years, I never saw that." pic.twitter.com/nZOcJw6Laa
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 25, 2021
A photograph that was taken of Biden at the podium showed that he appeared to have a pre-selected list of reporters that he called on. The reporters were numbered, and the numbers they were assigned correlate with the order in which they were called.
The photo shows 1. Zeke Miller, Associated Press; 5. Ken Thomas, The Wall Street Journal; 9. Justin Sink, Bloomberg News; 8. Kaitlan Collins, CNN.
At no point during the press conference did Biden ever appear to be holding a writing utensil, meaning the reporters were selected before he arrived at the podium.
Biden numbered the reporters.
How do you feel about this, journos?
Do ya like being numbered? pic.twitter.com/iFcoWacXso
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 26, 2021
“Fox News reporter Peter Doocy was in the room but Biden did not call on him, instead consulting a list that he repeatedly looked at when determining who he was going to call on,” The Daily Wire reported. “All of the reporters that Biden called on were from left-of-center mainstream publications and far-left organizations or are activists who masquerade as reporters.”
Biden called on the following reporters:
- Zeke Miller, reporter, Associated Press
- Yamiche Alcindor, far-left reporter, PBS
- Seung Min Kim, reporter, The Washington Post
- Cecilia Vega, reporter, ABC News
- Ken Thomas, reporter, Wall Street Journal
- Kristen Welker, reporter, NBC News
- Nancy Cordes, reporter, CBS News
- Kaitlan Collins, reporter, CNN
- Justin Sink, reporter, Bloomberg News
- Janet Rodriguez, reporter, Univision
Numerous pundits and political strategists have alleged online that Biden appeared to have received the questions in advance. The allegations haven’t been proven. Reports had already surfaced from the first days of the Biden administration that said that the Biden administration asked for reporters’ questions in advance of the daily press briefings.