During a White House briefing on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said something that made it sound as if he was a little child who was supposed to just deliver his speech and then go take a seat at his desk with the rest of the kids. After the briefing concluded, he started walking away from the podium but was peppered with questions. This prompted him to return to the podium to answer one.
After answering the question, he tried walking away once more, but again he was prompted to return to the podium and answer yet another question.
This wasn’t necessarily unusual behavior, though former President Donald Trump, known for his transparency, likely wouldn’t have tried walking away, period, as he almost always stuck around and answered questions.
But once Biden had answered the second question, he tried again to step away but was drawn back to the podium once more, at which point he said something bizarre.“You guys are bad. I’m not supposed to be answering all these questions. I’m supposed to leave, but I can’t resist your questions,” he told reporters.
What was that supposed to mean? Ironically, Biden’s bizarre words inspired a slew of additional questions, albeit not from the media but rather from social media, where Twitter users were flummoxed by his insistence that he wasn’t “supposed to be answering all these questions.”
But why wasn’t he supposed to answer all those questions? Had somebody instructed him to not answer all those questions? If so, why was that person’s instructions so important? Isn’t he the leader of the United States? Was he going to get in trouble for answering all those questions? If so, what would be the punishment? As noted above, transparency is indeed the key to running a White House, and it just so happens that Trump likely took more questions than any other president in U.S. history.
“Forget all that ‘the enemy of the people’ talk, Donald Trump has been spending a remarkable amount of time with reporters lately. In fact, ABC News can find no comparable time period when a president of the United States has taken more questions from the news media than Donald Trump has over the past 11 days,” ABC News reported in 2018, two years into his presidency.
Biden’s behavior, on the other hand, has been nearly the exact opposite — though it’s not a new phenomenon. Even during the 2020 presidential election, Trump continually outperformed him in regard to taking questions.
“Since Aug. 31, Biden has answered less than half as many questions from the press as Trump — 365 compared with 753 — according to a tally by the Trump campaign, which the Biden campaign didn’t dispute,” Axios reported in October.
What happened Wednesday wasn’t even the first time that the president had pulled the “I can’t answer questions” routine. He pulled the exact same stunt last month.
During another White House briefing late last month, he abruptly cut off questions on the grounds that he’d get “in trouble” if he continued speaking with reporters. At least he was allowed to speak at the time. During a virtual Democrat forum in March, his feed was cut seconds after he said he’d be “happy to take questions.”
But why? White House press secretary Jen Psaki may have provided the answer earlier this month. Speaking on CNN political commentator David Axelrod’s podcast, she admitted that the president taking questions “is not something we recommend.”
“That is not something we recommend. In fact, a lot of times we say ‘don’t take questions.’ But he’s going to do what he wants to do because he’s the president of the United States,” she said.
While it was good to know that she recognized that he’s the president, her bizarre remarks still left many wondering what the deal was.
