abcnews | Halfway into his first 100 days, President Joe Biden has yet to hold a formal, solo news conference, raising questions about accountability with the White House under increasing pressure to explain why.
Even as the nation deals with multiple crises -- a deadly pandemic and the devastating economic fallout -- Biden has gone longer without facing extended questions from reporters than any of his 15 predecessors over the past 100 years.
The tough exchanges in such a setting can reveal much more to Americans about a president's thinking and test his explanations, as opposed to what so far have been Biden's brief answers -- often one-liner quips -- in the tightly-controlled and often-scripted events the White House has arranged to date.
The contrast with former President Donald Trump has been especially striking, especially given Biden's repeated promises to Americans that he'd always be "straight" and "transparent."
The previous record was set by President George W. Bush, who waited 33 days before hosting a formal, solo press conference. But that was more of an anomaly: Many others held them within a handful of days or a few weeks of taking office, according to an analysis of documents in a database maintained by the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
CNN first reported on Biden surpassing his predecessors' record.
The White House last week pledged Biden would hold a news conference before this month was out, but it has not yet set a date. It did schedule his first primetime address for Thursday, though, "to commemorate the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown."
Trump held his first solo, formal news conference 27 days after assuming the presidency, while President Barack Obama did the same 20 days after taking office.
0 comments:
Post a Comment