By this point in their respective presidencies, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush had all given press conferences, yet Joe Biden has yet to talk to the press once.
In a new interview on Monday, former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News [1] that she had seen this coming, and that she had even warned the press about it.
“I actually warned some of the reporters there in the press corps,” McEnany said. “In the waning days of the Trump administration, he didn’t do as much press availabilities every day as he walked to [Marine One] or those press conferences.”
“I said to the correspondents, ‘You’re getting a little taste of what it will be like in the Biden administration,'” she added. “I said I wouldn’t expect to see much of him. We haven’t. We’re still waiting on that solo press conference, we’re still waiting for the day, apparently by the end of the month.”
This came days after McEnany told Fox Business [2] that Biden’s lack of press conferences was “extraordinary” but “not unprecedented.”
“You’ll recall… the ‘basement strategy’ is what he employed on the campaign trail,” she said, referring to then-candidate Biden doing press from his basement. “He went something like 50 days and he only took questions twice. And when he did, they were hand-picked questions.”
McEnany added that she thinks it’s Biden’s staffers that are keeping him away from the press.
“I think his staff does not have faith that he can stand at the podium and have a press conference the way President Trump did many times,” she said. “I don’t think this is President Biden saying, ‘I don’t want to do this. I think it’s those around him recognizing when he does speak, it doesn’t always turn out so well, like calling Republicans ‘Neanderthals,’ as he did recently in the Oval Office.”
In the end, McEnany believes that Biden’s staffers are trying to protect him by delaying when he speaks to the press.
“The pressure is mounting when you have even left-wing outlets calling him out for this,” she said.
This piece was written by James Samson on March 9, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette [3] and is used by permission.
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Gaetz Questions If ‘Transition To Harris Has Already Begun’ – ‘Joe Biden’s Had More Nap Time Than He’s Had Questions From Reporters’ [4]
Trump Pledges That He Will Campaign Against Lisa Murkowski In 2022 [5]
Trump Not Considering Replacing Pence On Potential 2024 Ticket, Jason Miller Claims [6]