President Joe Biden is happy to talk to reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday, despite his historically light interview schedule and the fact that he has no sit-down interviews on his calendar.
A reporter pushed the issue during the afternoon press briefing, acknowledging the Biden administration has “gotten a lot done this summer” before asking why Biden hasn’t done an interview in so long.
BIDEN INTERVIEW DROUGHT CONTINUES DESPITE REPORTS OF MESSAGING FRUSTRATION
“Is he dodging us?” asked the reporter, RealClearPolitics correspondent Philip Wegmann.
Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s record and said he enjoys talking to the press.
“The president loves talking to you all. He takes your questions all the time,” she said while smiling and laughing. “He took [Fox News reporter] Peter [Doocy]’s question last Friday. I’m sure Peter was excited about that.”
Wegmann protested that a sit-down interview is much different than taking a single question from a reporter.
“I hear you,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president is happy to talk to you all, and he does it multiple times during the week. I don’t have a sit-down interview to announce or provide or schedule at this time.”
In defending Biden’s record, Jean-Pierre erroneously said he’d been a senator for 46 years — the accurate number is 36 — before adding that she would share the next time he’s got an interview scheduled.
Wegmann committed his own gaffe by saying it had been more than 200 days since Biden’s last sit-down interview, later correcting himself to say it has been 83 days.
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Nonetheless, Biden’s interview schedule with members of the media is much lighter than that of his predecessors. He went well over 100 days between a sit-down interview conducted ahead of the Super Bowl and one conducted with the Associated Press on June 16, his last press interview to date.
