Opinion: Why Biden’s first press conference will be so challenging
Seared in my memory as a former White House adviser is a lesson President Joe Biden’s team is learning today: Hard as you try to drive a message, major unforeseen events intrude, diverting public attention and demanding your response.
In fact, a week that was supposed to feature presidential events to lift up and underline the Rescue Act has yielded entirely different and vexing storylines that you can be sure will dominate Thursday’s session.
Eager to avoid unforced rhetorical errors, Biden’s team did a brilliant job throughout the general election campaign of controlling his interactions with the news media, mitigating the risk of unintended stories. That has continued during his first weeks in office. Americans mostly have heard from their new President in scripted remarks.
It’s in marked contrast to his ubiquitous predecessor, who was always eager to share every thought — well-founded and truthful or not.
Thursday’s event will be a more challenging format, with reporter questions and follow-ups.
Biden may choose in an opening statement to make an announcement that he hopes will drive the news coverage. He will be furnished with a list of questioners, carefully curated by the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki. As is customary, he will have spent hours prepping with his team.
But rigorous though his prep may be, Biden and his team can only guess at the nature of the questions, many of which will be shaped by the events of the past week and even the hours before he takes the podium.
When he steps up to the podium Thursday, Biden’s aides and advisers will be hoping that the questions he hears will be familiar and the news he makes intended. That podium, with the presidential seal affixed, is a powerful platform but there is no guarantee.
Buffeted by unanticipated events and lines of questioning — and complicated by the President’s tendency to occasionally drift off point — the White House communications machine is hard to control.
Thursday will be an interesting test for this nascent presidency.
