White House Reporters Audibly Shocked at Sight of Joe Biden in White House Briefing Room
Reporters in the White House press briefing were audibly shocked when President Joe Biden entered the room Friday to take questions for the first time in his administration.
Biden paid a surprise visit to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room to give remarks about the latest jobs report and take several questions for about 15 minutes. Reporters gasped when the president entered the room for the first time in his presidency alongside White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
When Biden began his fourth year in office, he was averaging the lowest number of press conferences per year, 11, since former President Ronald Reagan, according to data compiled by the University of California at Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project. As of Feb. 2024, Biden had participated in fewer interviews with media outlets than his predecessors, only doing 86 interviews since his inauguration in 2021, according to NBC News.
The president appeared in the briefing room after an early morning report from Axios that the president has had no public events scheduled on 43 of the 75 days since he ended his 2024 campaign. Of the public events the president did participate in, only two were scheduled before 11 a.m., zero before 10 a.m. and five after 5 p.m., the Axios analysis shows. The president has also taken all calls and meetings with world leaders, except for one instance, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m since leaving the race, Axios reported.
Our WH press corps has repeatedly
invited the president to visit the briefing room to take questions. Today he did so for the first as president. We hope he returns and that future presidents will connect with the American people this way as well. It's an important tool of a… https://t.co/EPx61OpUOk— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) October 4, 2024
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