Watch: Ex-Biden Spox Jen Psaki Explains Why President Should Avoid Press Conferences
By now, most have discerned that Joe Biden’s handlers have been absolutely terrified to let the confused octogenarian loose in front of a stable of reporters.
How else would the American people view the lack of news conferences the president has given, while preferring easy interviews on friendly talk shows and podcasts?
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, however, now an MSNBC host, had a different perspective on this lack of candor from the senior citizen in the White House.
Appearing on that last bastion of hard-hitting journalism, ABC’s “The View,” Psaki declared that it was actually better for Biden — and the American people, of course — if he appears on these popular programs rather than face the possibility of a grilling on actual issues, like the disaster he’s unleashed on the southern border.
The video is below:
The segment began with host Alyssa Farrah Griffin asking about Biden’s limited news conferences.
In an April 2023 article, The New York Times reported that Biden had averaged 10 news conferences per year his first two years, while Donald Trump had averaged 19.5 in the same time, and Barack Obama 23.
As for interviews, Biden had only given 54 at the time of the Times report (including softball celebrity interviews where he talked about ice cream), compared to Trump’s 202 and Obama’s 275.
Psaki claimed Biden was getting the message out to Americans anyway.
“I think the benefit of the media environment right now — there’s a lot of challenges, but I’m going to start with the optimistic side — is that there are so many choices,” she said.
While she probably meant “choices to help avoid letting Biden make a fool himself,” she did have one, salient point.
As the U.K. Daily Mail pointed out, traditional news outlets have had less and less influence in average citizen’s lives over the last 20 or so years.
Very few people exclusively get their news from the major newspapers or news stations, so it would make sense for presidents and public figures to diversify the kinds of outlets they speak to.
That, however, has not been the overwhelming impetus behind Biden’s shunning of traditional media, where he might face hard questions.
Nevertheless, Psaki continued, “When you’re communicating from the White House, I mean, respect for freedom of speech and freedom of the press is important, but you’re also really just trying to communicate with the American people.”
“So my view is,” she said, “he should come on ‘The View’ before he does a press conference,” which elicited thunderous applause from the clapping seals in the audience.
She even cited Biden’s widely mocked interview with former shock-jock Howard Stern and his appearance with Obama and former President Bill Clinton on the “Smartless” podcast — hosted by American actors Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes and Canadian actor Will Arnett — as venues for Biden to reach the American people.
“Because,” Psaki explained, “people want to have real conversations about issues that are happening. I think press conferences are important, but I also think him doing Howard Stern, that’s an interview that reached a broader audience of people. Him talking to the guys from ‘Smartless,’ which is a great podcast.
“So, if you’re in the White House, you’re not thinking about, ‘Am I checking the box on doing the most interviews?’ You’re thinking about, ‘Am I doing the most I can to communicate my message to the American people, that’s who I represent?'”
“So,” Psaki concluded, “more Howard Stern, come on ‘The View,’ you know, more ‘Smartless’ conversations, where you’re having conversations about policy, but they’re real ones.”
Was that what those interviews were?
Because, from most Americans’ perspectives, those interviews were filled with softball questions from celebrity hosts designed to avoid the tough issues and prevent Biden from embarrassing himself.
Not that Psaki or any of Biden’s current handlers would admit that, of course.
But, considering the disaster of Biden’s news conference following the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s years of mishandling classified documents, it would not be an unreasonable conclusion.
And that was when Biden was mostly coherent.
Most of the time, between Biden’s poor diction and poorer memory, one can barely make out three words the man has tried to say.
One might wonder whether Psaki or anyone else in the establishment would cover for Trump the same way if he were to dodge the establishment media the way Biden has.
If anything, they would eviscerate him, using that fact against him to bolster their “threat to democracy” fear-mongering.
Trump might not be a perfect candidate, but he had no issue making himself and his reasoning accessible to the American people during his presidency.
The choice in November should, hopefully, be crystal clear now: Do Americans want the dementia-riddled senior citizen who can barely remember his own name, or the former president with a clear track record of making life demonstrably better for the American people?
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