On Thursday, President Biden was heard asking staff for permission to “answer some questions” from the audience during a campaign stop in Michigan, and other aides quickly moved him out of earshot of reporters. .
“Can I ask you a few questions?” Biden, 81, said. I asked a female staff member He met with supporters and campaign volunteers on the front porch of a Saginaw City Councilman’s home.
“Yes, we would like to ask you a few questions,” the staff member replied.
The official’s reaction apparently signaled the other three aides to quickly begin herding reporters, who were already stationed on the sidewalk about six feet away.
“Thank you, reporters…get back in your cars,” they shouted, shooing the reporters away before Biden could take questions.
This is the second time this week that Biden, who has held the fewest formal press conferences or press conferences of any modern president, has asked if he would take questions.
After speaking to an audience at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s headquarters in Manchester on Monday, the commander-in-chief asked, “Can I ask you any questions?”
“Someone here is a staffer –” Biden continued, clearly about to say “staff” before trailing off as the crowd laughed.
Before the camera footage of the event cut out, a staff member quickly interjected, “Thank you, reporters.”
Biden also frequently told his audience that answering unauthorized questions would “get you in trouble.”
In one viral incident, Biden was prevented from answering a question about Afghanistan at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April 2022, but one of his staff members dressed as an Easter Bunny interrupted him. and took Biden away.
The Biden campaign’s apparent insistence that it not take questions from the public in front of reporters bothered some on social media.
“This is bad. So bad. They told his staff not to let him speak,” conservative columnist Buzz Patterson wrote in the X in response to video footage of the Saginaw event.
“Mr. Trump could have gone out and talked spontaneously for an hour.”
FOX News contributor Joe Conchan said: [you’re] Wondering why the poll numbers have gone down since posting? [State of the Union]this is Exhibit Z since then…”
Another X user pointed out that “the ‘leaders’ of the free world have to ask permission to speak to the press.”
