Advisers to President Biden hurriedly pushed the traveling press away while shouting questions to an indifferent commander-in-chief in Washington on Tuesday – his 48th day in office without an individual press conference.
The incident occurred at the end of Biden’s visit to WS Jenks & Son, a hardware store in the nation’s capital that benefited from its temporary extension to smaller companies in the Pay Check Protection Program.
After watching Biden’s interaction with store owners and employees for about 10 minutes, reporters started shouting a series of questions at him to no avail.
Immediately afterwards, the 46th president’s aides started shouting back in the affirmative: “Come on, press, you have to go”, while the entire band of reporters was quickly removed from the scene.
Biden, who was about 5 to 6 meters away from the press pool, did not waver or answer a single of the countless shouted questions, including one about the growing immigration crisis on the southern border.
Tuesday marks not only the 48th day of Biden’s presidency, but also the longest that a commander-in-chief has spent in recent history without holding a solo press conference.
Biden has been longer than his 15 most recent predecessors – going back 100 years – without answering questions from the press in the most official forum.
All 15 previous presidents held a solo press conference 33 days after taking office, according to a CNN analysis of American Presidential Project data.
President Donald Trump gave his first solo press conference 27 days after taking office, while President Barack Obama did one 20 days after taking office.
Biden, for his part, forgot to hold a single one, and that doesn’t seem to be changing in the immediate future.
When pressed on the subject at a briefing on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki argued that the president was too busy managing the “historic crises” linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He answered the questions. I believe that this count is almost 40 times, ”she said. “And I would say that his focus, again, is to get recovery and relief for the American people and he hopes to continue to engage with all of you and the members of – other media members who are not here today, and we will hope to it as soon as the press conference is scheduled. “
The commander-in-chief spoke briefly with reporters before boarding the presidential plane and answered some questions from the press after making public statements about the coronavirus and other issues.
He hasn’t faced reporters alone since he became the leader of the free world.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to the Post’s request to comment on the president’s refusal to hold a briefing.