Three years into Joe Biden’s presidency, reporters covering the administration know what to expect when first lady Jill Biden shows up, and nothing.
The 81-year-old president has held the fewest press conferences or formal conferences of any modern commander-in-chief, and Biden’s trip across the South Lawn of the White House in a Marine One helicopter is a rare sight for reporters. This is the best opportunity to obtain information. Face time.
When Mr. Biden is alone, it’s much easier to lure him in with loud questions, sometimes limping in around midnight for a give-and-take — even under the unflattering overhead TV lights. This was despite the fact that I had to cover my hands to protect my eyes from the glare.
But having Jill, 72, on such trips is an absolute perk, no question about it, and the first lady makes sure to hold her husband’s hand the whole time on the lawn.
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First Lady Jill Biden and White House staff have tried to help the president avoid taking questions and making gaffes during press conferences over the past three years. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Jill Biden’s role in protecting her husband from members of the media has received new attention after special counsel Robert Hur described the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in a report released Thursday. ing.
Since taking office in January 2021, Biden has held only three solo press conferences at the White House. Most recently, in November 2022, Jill arrived just in time and was seated at the front of the state dining room by her burly entourage. Her journalists placed her in such a way that they could not see whether the first lady was urging her husband to retreat quickly.
Such precautions may have been necessary after Biden held his second White House press conference in January 2022. During the marathon incident, the president rambled on for nearly two hours, making several factual errors and notable gaffes.
At the press conference, Biden suggested that Russia’s “small-scale invasion” of Ukraine would prompt a minimal U.S. response, surprising Kiev officials and prompting the president to urge President Vladimir Putin to push back against the invasion. He signaled that he had given the green light, which Putin did a few weeks later.
“Why Didn’t Nobody Stop It?” Axios reported on Friday, according to an excerpt from New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers’ upcoming book, that Jill Biden She was furious and demanded an explanation as to why her husband had been left alone in front of the world.
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The first lady was furious with aides after Biden made comments about Russia and Ukraine at the White House press conference, according to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers. (AP Photo/Jean J. Pasker)
“Everyone was silent, looking at each other, then at her, then at each other again,” Rogers wrote. “Some of them were some of the most powerful men in the world.
“Despite his aides holding out a card indicating the end of the press conference, the husband basically did not answer and complied in silence,” the book adds.
The first lady has also assumed the role of stage manager for her husband, and after the president repeatedly hesitated and wandered, she held Joe’s hand at last month’s event commemorating the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. and got off the stage. After she spoke she took a wrong turn.
Jill isn’t alone. White House staff also go to great lengths to prevent interactions that could embarrass the president.
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Joe Biden’s former press secretary, Jen Psaki, twice tried to intervene to end the January 2022 session. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
At the same January 2022 press conference that caused so much pain to the first lady, then-press secretary Jen Psaki, wearing her signature pink blazer, stood up after about an hour and apparently tried to end the proceedings. It seemed like he was doing it.
Psaki sat down while Biden continued to ask questions, but about 20 minutes later, she stood up again, walked to a door about 50 feet from the press box, and appeared to try again to finish the questions, but the questions continued for about 20 minutes. It lasted 40 minutes. .
But the most infamous staff intervention occurred at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April 2022, when Meghan Hayes, then director of message planning, barged in wearing an Easter bunny costume and Biden Blocked and directed Afghan journalists from answering their questions. Please stay away from the rope line.
The White House Press Office has also played its part, implementing a Byzantine pre-vetting process under past administrations to choose which reporters to participate in large-scale indoor events that are open to everyone, and targeting those most sympathetic to the administration. The result was that they were most likely to attend. The invitation may be extended.
Pre-screening was relaxed in the summer of 2022 following protests by members of the press corps, but was reinstated ahead of Biden’s last-minute response to Xu’s report Thursday night. Digital RSVP forms were distributed only minutes before the hastily scheduled event in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, and some reporters on the grounds of the executive mansion were denied entry to the relatively small venue. .
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President Biden has held the fewest press conferences of any other president, and has not held a large press conference since the APEC summit in November. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Despite all the precautions, Biden’s tendency to say the wrong thing has not been hidden for long.
For example, at a White House press conference in November 2022, Biden said he would answer questions from 10 reporters from a pre-approved list of names, but said the Russian military was preparing. After a brutal gaffe, he left after calling only nine people. He wanted to say Kherson, Ukraine, but he withdrew from Fallujah, Iraq.
These gaffes have increased in recent weeks, with Mr. Biden confusing the names of current foreign leaders with those of his deceased predecessor. On Sunday, Biden told a Las Vegas audience that he had recently spoken with France’s late President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996. In Manhattan on Wednesday, Biden recalled to donors his discussions with the German president about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Chancellor Helmut Kohl last served in office in 1998 and died in 2017.
On Thursday night, shortly after insisting he “knew what he was doing” in response to a Hull report, Biden misidentified Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as “the president of Mexico.”
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The president has not held a major press conference since the APEC summit in November, when he appeared confused as he stood alongside other world leaders and mispronounced the name of the venue.
That same month, his re-election campaign launched “Operation Bubble Wrap,” which insiders say is designed to encourage the president to engage in unscrupulous travel, whether on stage or aboard Air Force One. The purpose was to protect people from stumbling.
