Three years later Joe Biden’s presidencyjournalists covering the administration know what to expect when first lady Jill Biden appears: nothing.
The president, 81, has held the fewest news conferences or formal interviews of any modern commander in chief — leaving Biden’s escapades across the White House South Lawn to and from his Marine One helicopter as the best chance for the press to get some. face time.
When Biden is alone, it’s much easier to bait him with shouted questions, sometimes dragging himself around midnight for an exchange — despite the unflattering TV lights forcing him to raise his hand to shield his eyes from the glare.
However, the presence of Jill, 72, on such trips is a clear sign that there will be no questions, with the first lady making sure to hold her husband’s hand throughout the lawn.
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First lady Jill Biden and White House staff have tried to come to the president’s aid during press conferences for the past three years, in an attempt to prevent Joe Biden from answering questions and possibly making a gaffe. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Jill Biden’s role in protecting her husband from members of the media has come under new scrutiny after special counsel Robert Hur described the president in a report released Thursday as a “elderly man with bad memory“.
Biden has held only three solo press conferences at the White House since taking office in January 2021. The most recent, in November 2022, Jill arrived at the last minute and was seated at the very front of the dining room. state by a burly aide — who positioned her so that reporters could not see if the first lady was at any point urging her husband to hastily step aside.
Such precautions might have been necessary after Biden’s second White House press conference in January 2022, a marathon affair in which the president droned on for nearly two hours and made several notable factual errors and gaffes.
At that news conference, Biden suggested that a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would draw a minimal response from the United States, leaving Kiev officials dismayed and suggesting the president had given Vladimir Putin a “fire green” to invade – which it did weeks later.
“Why didn’t anyone stop this?” Jill Biden fumed to aides, demanding an explanation for why her husband was left to wither before the world, according to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers, reported Friday by Axios .
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According to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers, the first lady fumed to aides after Biden’s remarks at a White House news conference regarding Russia and ‘Ukraine. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
“Everyone remained silent, looking at each other, then at her, then at each other,” Rogers writes. “That included the most powerful man in the world.
“Her husband essentially played along, offering no response, even though his aides slipped her a card suggesting she end the press conference,” the book adds.
The first lady also took on the role of stage manager for her husband, leading Joe by the hand off stage during an event last month to commemorate the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol after repeated instances hesitation or wandering on the part of the president. in the wrong direction after making comments.
Jill isn’t alone: The White House staff has also gone to great lengths to shield the president from potentially embarrassing interactions.
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Joe Biden’s former press secretary, Jen Psaki, twice tried to intervene to end the January 2022 conference. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
This same January 2022 press conference It caused so much angst that the first lady, then-press secretary Jen Psaki – dressed in a distinctive pink blazer – stood up after about an hour in an apparent attempt to end the proceedings.
Psaki sat back down as Biden continued to answer questions, only to get back up about 20 minutes later and walk toward a door about 50 feet from the press seating area in another apparent attempt to end the interrogation, which lasted approximately another 40 minutes. .
But the most notorious staff intervention came during the White House Easter Egg Roll in April 2022, when then-director of message planning Meghan Hays, dressed in an Easter Bunny costume, burst in to prevent Biden from answering an Afghan journalist’s question and guided him. away from the rope line.
The White House press office also played its part, introducing a Byzantine pre-screening process to select which journalists were allowed to attend large indoor events that were open to all under previous administrations – leading to muttering that those closest to the administration were most likely to do so. be extended invitations.
Pre-screening was relaxed following a protest by members of the press in the summer of 2022, but returned ahead of Biden’s last-minute response to Hur’s report Thursday evening. Digital RSVP forms were sent out only minutes before the hastily scheduled event in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room and some journalists on campus at the Executive Mansion were denied access to that room relatively small.
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President Biden has held the fewest press conferences than any other president and has not had a major press conference since the APEC summit in November. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Despite all the precautions taken, Biden’s penchant for saying bad things was never hidden for long.
At that November 2022 White House press conference, for example, Biden said he would take 10 questions from reporters from a list of pre-approved names, but he left after calling only nine – following a brutal gaffe in which he said Russian troops were preparing. to withdraw from the Iraqi city of Fallujah when he meant the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
These errors have increased in recent weeks, with Biden mixing the names of current foreign leaders with those of their deceased predecessors. On Sunday, he told a Las Vegas audience that he had recently spoken with the late French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996. In Manhattan on Wednesday, Biden reminded donors that he had discussed the Jan. 6 riot 2021 at the Capitol with Germans. Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who last held office in 1998 and died in 2017.
On Thursday evening, moments after insisting that “I know what I’m doing” in response to the Hur report, Biden falsely identified Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the “president of Mexico.”
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President has not held a press conference of any size since the APEC summit in November, where he appeared confused while standing alongside other world leaders and mispronounced the name of the venue .
That same month, his re-election campaign launched Operation Bubble Wrap, which, according to sources inside the New York Times, was intended to protect the president from his unflattering trips and stumbles – whether on stage or on board. of Air Force One.
