A reporter called him “a moral and decent man”.
Another asked him to react to what Barack Obama had said at John Lewis’s funeral.
And several urged him on how he would fulfill liberal priorities.
With a few prominent exceptions, President Biden’s first press conference yesterday was an easy session, failing to arrest him on significant issues. A lot of time was wasted on process issues.
Biden did well, despite all the pre-game talk about whether he was too undisciplined to face the press for an hour. He rambled on for a long time at times (as he noted on some points himself), stopped in the middle of the sentence and strangely fumbled to find the predetermined list of who he would call. And he avoided major controversies by turning a gun control issue into a dissertation on infrastructure.
In short, it was nothing like a Trump press.
In addition to difficult and punctual questions from Cecilia Vega of ABC and Kristen Welker of NBC, journalists were polite, asked open-ended questions, or made it clear that they wanted him to boost their agenda.
Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, who spoke of Biden’s decency, asked about conflicting messages for migrant families with this free pass: “How do you resolve this tension?”
After the president spent part of a lengthy response blaming the Trump administration, Alcindor switched to Republicans who she said were trying to “restrict” voting rights. She invited him to attack the obstructionist, citing favorably Chuck Schumer and Jim Clyburn.
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CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, who quoted Obama as saying the obstruction is a “relic”, also pressured Biden on the issue. This focus on a Senate parliamentary tactic left the impression that part of the press wants the practice to be abolished so that the president can easily approve his Democratic agenda without Republican delays.
AP’s Zeke Miller set the tone when he asked about the Republican Party’s “united and rigid opposition” to Biden’s agenda on “immigration reform, arms control, voting rights and climate change”. But then he threw a softball: “How far are you willing to go to keep these promises you made to the American people?”
What’s he going to say? Is it not far enough?
Embedded in several of these issues was the assumption that this whole “reform” is the right way to go. I don’t remember many reporters asking Trump how far he would go to keep his promises, when these were initiatives like tax cuts and building a border wall.
Nancy Cordes of CBS returned to local Republican efforts to “restrict” voting, saying that “Democrats fear” that “particularly Democrats fear impacting minority voters and young voters. The same people who helped make him elected in November… are you unable to pass voting rights legislation, that your party will lose seats and possibly lose control of the House and Senate in 2022? “Again, no challenge as to the substance, just the process and the policy.
Cordes obtained Biden’s most passionate response, in which he called the Republican measures “anti-American”, “unhealthy” and “despicable”. He said that in some states the vote would end at 5 pm and no one could bring water to the people waiting in line. But reporters made no effort to describe these measures or criticisms of the Democrats’ bill. In fact, no journalist has asked the president to respond to Republican criticism, except for Mitch McConnell, who said he spoke to Biden only once.
Cordes also asked if Biden is running for re-election in 2024, and Collins asked if Kamala Harris would remain on the ticket – just a few months after he took office. No president would declare himself a lame duck so prematurely.
On the other hand, Vega challenged the president by invoking a 9-year-old boy he met and who had walked to the Honduras border: “It is his message and saying that these children are and will be allowed to stay in this country and work their way through process, encouraging families “to come? Biden said he would not “let them starve” and suggested that Trump did.
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And Welker did not need a long conclusion: “Will you commit to allowing journalists to have access to facilities that are overcrowded going forward?” Biden said he would commit, “when my plan is very soon underway.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to schedule him for a date.
Undoubtedly, the topics, which included Afghanistan, China and North Korea, were substantive. No one asked about Biden’s dogs. But here’s the thing: poorly worded questions and tacit acceptance of Democratic priorities have made this kind of cakewalk easy for Joe Biden.