Psaki got snappy when Chris Wallace asked her about Biden’s lack of sit-down interviews with the press
The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, interviewed with Chris Wallace Wednesday in what was mostly a bland exchange. That is, until Wallace pointed out that Biden has been sheltered from the press.
The contention started when Wallace pointed out that so far this year, Biden has only had one sit-down interview with a reporter and only 9 press conferences in his first few years as opposed to President Trump’s 21 and Obama’s 27 by this point in their presidencies. Total, Biden has had only 28 press interviews so far when President Trump had 95 this far in.
Psaki disagrees with this fact, stating that Wallace is “leaving out” all the times Biden has stopped to answer a reporter in an impromptu fashion.
From The Daily Mail:
“Nearly every day at the White House, he takes questions from the White House press corps,” she said.
Wallace began, “Yeah but Jen –”
“Two questions three questions eight questions,” Psaki continued saying over the CNN+ host. “So why is that different?”
Wallace, who spent more than a decade early in his career as a White House correspondent, challenged: “I’ll tell you exactly why that’s different, because when you’re standing there, you can take a question. You can answer it, you can slough it off and you can move on.”
“And oftentimes, he gives a partial answer and walks away. It in no way compares to sitting down with a reporter for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and having — you can’t move away, you can duck it, you’ve got to sit there and answer the question and the follow up. It’s not the same thing,” he finished.
Psaki asked him to “agree to disagree.”
Try as she might, however, Psaki cannot disagree with the fact that Biden has been sheltered from the media. every other president in recent memory has by this point had far more press conferences and sit-down press interviews than has Biden, and the reason why is likely because his handlers know that he is too incompetent to handle being grilled by the press.
Watch the interview here:
