After more than 50 days in office, President Biden has yet to give a solo press conference, which separates him from more than a dozen of his more recent predecessors.
Although the president made his first prime-time speech on Thursday to talk about the country’s progress in defeating the coronavirus pandemic, the period of more than seven weeks is the longest that a new president has spent without meeting with the the press for the past 100 years, the Washington Post reported.
The White House said last week that Biden would hold a press conference before the end of the month, justifying his long absence from the podium by saying that he regularly answers questions from reporters in informal settings.
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“The president answers questions several times a week,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week. “[W]This is an opportunity for people covering the White House to ask him about any news that is happening on a given day. “
She added that the president has been directing his “energy” and focus to getting Americans through the pandemic, taking shots in his arms and approving the American Rescue Plan.
Despite the unusual moment of his entry into the White House, Biden frustrated the White House Correspondents’ Association. President Zeke Miller told Vanity Fair last week that press conferences are “critical to informing the American people and holding a government accountable”.
The Washington Post Editorial Board also condemned the president as saying “it is past Biden’s time to give a press conference”.
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Donald Trump, whose government has often been criticized for his irregular communication with the press, gave his first press conference just a week after his presidency began.
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton formally met with the press nine days after taking office, while Barack Obama waited 20 days, the Post reported.