On Monday, President Biden revealed he’s quite aware of how he avoids answering questions from the press as he visited children at East End Elementary School in North Plainfield, New Jersey. While the elementary school children were playing at their tables, Biden intoned, as he gestured toward reporters, “You know, when you’re president — see all these people here, they’re with you all the time — they get to ask you all kinds of questions and you try to figure out how you’re gonna avoid answering them sometimes.”
Biden tells kids reporters “get to ask you all kinds of questions and you try to figure out how you’re gonna avoid answering them” pic.twitter.com/P1bZDozuQW
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 25, 2021
The Daily Wire reported on October 13, “President Joe Biden refused to answer questions from reporters on Wednesday following remarks that he gave about supply chain shortages that are causing widespread problems across the U.S. During the remarks, Biden threatened to take action if private sector companies did not fix the problem, saying, ‘If the private sector doesn’t step up, we’re going to call them out and ask them to act.’ At the end of the remarks, Biden bolted for the exit, ignoring questions about whether Christmas gifts would arrive on time this year and what he was doing to lower gasoline prices.”
In mid-August, on an NBC News “Special Report” that was covering Biden’s news conference, NBC News abruptly cut away from the news conference as soon as Biden started to take questions from the press.
Biden concluded his prepared statement by saying, “And I’ll keep you informed every day as we move forward. May God protect our troops and our diplomats who are serving in harm’s way. I’ll take a few questions. Darlene, from the Associated Press.”
Darlene Superville, White House reporter for The Associated Press, asked, “Mr. President: we’re nine days away from the August 31 deadline. Will you extend that deadline, or what is your thought process on extending the evacuation operation?”
NBC News’ Kate Snow nodded, possibly obeying an instruction given in her earphone, then cut in, “All right. We’ve been listening to President Biden with dual challenges on a Sunday talking about Tropical Storm Henri, all the preparations being made, also talking about Afghanistan. Let’s get right to Monica Alba, who’s at the White House.”
Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters, pointed out that Biden’s staff reportedly hadn’t wanted him to take questions:
Back in May, press secretary Jen Psaki admitted to her pal David Axelrod that Biden “takes questions nearly every day he’s out from the press. That is not something we recommend. In fact, a lot of times we say, ‘Don’t take questions.’”
Als0 in August, award-winning investigative journalist Lara Logan fired off a challenge to the mainstream media to ask Biden questions that they had been reluctant to ask. She stated, “U.S. media needs to ask why U.S./Intel/NSA allowed sensitive mil equipment to be transported to Pakistan w/o doing anything? Why is the Biden admin not acknowledging the Afghan govt – VP Amrullah Saleh hasn’t surrendered, announced he’s acting Pres under constitution U.S. helped draft.”
On August 18, Biden quickly exited a press conference without taking a single question from reporters.