President Biden hasn’t dropped the microphone; he appears to have lost it. Mr. Biden is turning into a news media evader, and it’s harmful to his presidency and the nation. In the past 100 years, only Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan averaged fewer news conferences than Mr. Biden. (A news conference involves the president taking questions from multiple reporters; a one-on-one interview with a handpicked journalist doesn’t count.)
So far in 2023, Mr. Biden has done zero solo news conferences. He did conduct two “joint news conferences” in which the president and a visiting foreign leader faced the media together. It should not take a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for the American public to hear the president answering urgent questions from a free press. Presidents also typically interact informally with the media, answering a few questions on the way to an event. Mr. Biden doesn’t do many of those exchanges either, according to the American Presidency Project tracker.
Mr. Biden even joked at the recent White House correspondents’ dinner about how infrequently he takes questions from reporters: “In a lot of ways, this dinner sums up my first two years in office. I’ll talk for 10 minutes, take zero questions and cheerfully walk away.” The president and his team promised transparency. Instead, he is stonewalling the media.
It happened again on Monday. Mr. Biden appeared alongside Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to brief reporters on new efforts to force airlines to compensate passengers when a flight is canceled. As soon as his remarks ended, Mr. Biden turned and walked off, ignoring questions from reporters. This comes after the president claimed Friday that he was doing a “major press conference” that evening. In reality, he was doing an MSNBC interview.
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End of carousel- Lawyers plead guilty in racketeering case in Fulton County, Ga.
- The Biden administration announces more than $100 million to improve maternal health.
- Wisconsin Republicans back off impeachment threat against justice.
- Bahrain’s hunger strike ends, for now, after concessions to prisoners.
- A Saudi court sentences a retired teacher to death based on tweets.
Attorneys for Donald Trump have pleaded guilty in the racketeering case led by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis. Even those lawyers related to the deals focused on equipment-tampering in rural Coffee County are relevant to the former president — they help to establish the “criminal enterprise” of which prosecutors hope to prove Mr. Trump was the head. The news is a sign that the courts might be the place where 2020 election lies finally crash upon the rocks of reality. The Editorial Board wrote about the wide range of the indictment in August.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced more than $103 million in funding to address the maternal health crisis. The money will boost access to mental health services, help states train more maternal health providers and bolster nurse midwifery programs. These initiatives are an encouraging step toward tackling major gaps in maternal health and well-being. In August, the Editorial Board wrote about how the United States can address its maternal mortality crisis.
Wisconsin state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) announced Tuesday that Republicans would allow the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau to draw legislative maps, a dramatic reversal after years of opposing such an approach to redistricting. A new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court is expected to throw out the current maps, which make Wisconsin the most gerrymandered state in America. Mr. Vos has been threatening to impeach Justice Janet Protasiewicz, whose election this spring flipped control of the court, in a bid to keep those maps. This led to understandable outcry. Now it seems Mr. Vos is backing off his impeachment threat and his efforts to keep the state gerrymandered. Read our editorial on the Protasiewicz election here.
Prisoners are eating again in Bahrain after the government agreed to let them spend more hours outside and expanded their access to visitors, a welcome development ahead of the crown prince’s visit to Washington this week. Activists say the monthlong hunger strike will resume on Sept. 30 if these promises aren’t kept. Read our editorial calling for the compassionate release of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a political prisoner since 2011 who participated in the strike.
A retired teacher in Saudi Arabia, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, has been sentenced to death by the country’s Specialized Criminal Court solely based on his tweets, retweets and YouTube activity, according to Human Rights Watch. The court’s verdict, July 10, was based on two accounts on X, formerly Twitter, which had only a handful of followers. The posts criticized the royal family. The sentence is the latest example of dictatorships imposing harsh sentences on people who use social media for free expression, highlighted in our February editorial.
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Taking questions from the media promotes public accountability. It also shows that the president is willing to defend his positions and instills confidence that he can do the job. It is widely known that Mr. Biden is gaffe-prone and that news conferences are not his forte. But as he runs for a second term, he should be eager to show he can handle all aspects of the job.
Pick up the microphone, Mr. President. The media is not your enemy.
