President Biden is already 65 days into his presidency. He has yet to hold a formal press conference like all his predecessors Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton all have during their presidency. The pressure has been mounting for weeks when Biden will hold his first formal press conference before press corps in the East Room and he will no doubt be bombarded with questions and follow-up questions.
Press conferences are not helpful to President Biden
According to The Atlantic, longtime pollster Frank Luntz said that Biden is not that quick on his feet. He’s 78-years-old and may flub for an answer on live television. Biden’s team made the decision to limit his exposure to avoid an embarrassing gaffe. He’s not the “in-your-face” type of president that Donald Trump with a megaphone was and he refused to leave and he’s certainly not the hour-by-hour type who goes in front of the cameras to be an arrogant self-centered superstar. That’s not who Biden really is.
Now it’s been announced that Biden will hold a press conference on March 25 this Thursday. He has been on tour with Vice President Kamala Harris promoting his American Rescue Plan.
Here’s a YouTube clip from Fox News:
Another Democratic pollster, Mark Mellman said, (via The Atlantic) “People are happy to see Joe Biden when they see him, but they’re not happy to see him every day.”
Luntz recommended delaying the press conference longer and may possibly hold one into the 100-day mark stating, “A press conference will not help him and can only hurt him.” “There’s nothing to be gained from it.” He added that the audience for a presidential news conference is shrunken and fractured and the problem is you’re preaching to the choir.” “No Trump voter will listen to Biden just as no Biden voter will listen to Trump.”
When Biden was on the campaign trail, he stuck to his home in Delaware and did not participate in marathon rallies. Biden believes what works on the campaign to victory will work in the West Wing now that he’s the commander-in-chief. Spooling out press conferences sparingly works better than the in-your-face approach. When Trump was in office, his followers thought he was an exciting one-of-a-kind president for the people. Biden is “boring” and believes that American people need and want that. He risks a misstatement or garbled a bit of syntax. Is being “boring” actually better? Perhaps a much calmer approach but not necessarily “better.”
Biden’s Approval Rating
So are Biden’s tactics paying off? A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week showed Biden ranked 59 percent approval and only 35 percent disapprove. Republicans believe that Biden sufferers from a cognitive disorder.
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleisher under George W. Bush says, “If Biden doesn’t drool all over himself during a press conference, he’s going to have done better than they expected.” Still, most believe that America is heading towards disaster and Biden will have to be replaced under the 25th Amendment. My prediction? He will barely survive one-term and we will have the first female president Kamala Harris at our disposal. Biden even “flubbed” recently and called her “President Harris!”