Members of the media lauded President Joe Biden’s “refreshing” first solo press conference, with many saying it was a welcome change from the Trump administration’s more confrontational tone.
“I think Republicans thought Biden was going to trip and fall at the press conference. It’s so normal it’s refreshing,” CNN analyst Bakari Sellers tweeted. “It’s wild, we don’t have to track the sheer volume of lies.”
I think Republicans thought Biden was going to trip and fall at the press conference.
It’s so normal it’s refreshing.
It’s wild, we don’t have to track the sheer volume of lies.
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) March 25, 2021
Biden held his first solo press conference on Thursday afternoon, on his 65th day in office. Every president since at least 1923 has held a press conference within 33 days of taking office, including Biden’s recent predecessors, former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
Many within the media echoed Sellers, saying his roughly hourlong conference was “reassuring” and that the new administration has brought back “normalcy,” while others held it as proof that Biden is mentally sharp.
The Biden press conference is very reassuring that we can return to some sense of normalcy. Smart questions and smart answers.
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) March 25, 2021
Biden Press Conference Review: Hour 1
✔️ Hasn’t praised Nazis.
✔️ Hasn’t praised Putin.
✔️ Hasn’t praised his own mental acuity by recalling the phrase Person Woman Man Camera TV.
✔️ Hasn’t gratuitously insulted anyone.
✔️ Hasn’t suggested injecting anything into the body.— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 25, 2021
There is a very good reason this man has survived in American politics for four decades, and why he was able to dispatch with Trump by ten million votes. There’s a reason Trump feared him so much that he tried to bribe Ukraine and got himself impeached, and then went for a coup.
— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid ? (@JoyAnnReid) March 25, 2021
Biden: A
Press: D-— Jennifer ‘pro-voting’ Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) March 25, 2021
Think it’s possible we will look back and realize Biden’s simple, to-the-point answers at press conferences land better with the public than Obama’s multi-part dissections of issues, never mind Trump’s rambling streams of consciousness.
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) March 25, 2021
Joe Biden is doing an outstanding job in this press conference.
— Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) March 25, 2021
The contrast between Biden-@Yamiche and Trump-Yamiche at a presidential press conference kind of says it all .
— adam nagourney (@adamnagourney) March 25, 2021
Biden announced during the presser that he plans to run for reelection in 2024, and he shrugged off that Trump had set up a reelection office during the first few months of his administration.
“The answer is yes, my plan is to run for reelection,” he said. “That’s my expectation.”
“My predecessor needed to. … Oh, God, I miss him,” he joked.
He was also peppered with questions on the crisis at the border, with him committing to transparency on the matter once his “plan” takes root.
“I will commit [to transparency] when my plan, very shortly, is underway to let you have access to them and to other facilities as well,” he said.
PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor also asked the president: “The perception of you, that got you elected as a moral, decent man, is the reason a lot of immigrants are coming to the country. … How do you resolve that tension, and how are you choosing which families can stay and which can go?”
“I guess I should be flattered people are coming because I’m a nice guy,” he responded.
The conference, however, lacked any questions on the coronavirus or green energy jobs, and he only took questions from legacy media outlets, with Fox News’s Peter Doocy never being called upon.
Biden, at times, also took long pauses between questions, appeared to get lost in some answers, and was seen using a printout to assist him during the conference, which set off a torrent of criticisms among some media personalities.
Are you kidding me? Biden is flipping through a typed, multi-page document, which i bet are Qs & As. I’ve never seen a POTUS bring one of those to a news conference. Is he really that week that he needs a study guide?
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) March 25, 2021
President Biden blames Republicans for “politics of division” — this from the man who called for unity, met with Republicans on COVID relief, and then steamrolled them, moving unilaterally with only Democrat votes.
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) March 25, 2021
Biden has clearly rehearsed his answers to questions planted through the corporate press today. He looks down at his notes at one point & says “where am I?” on the list of reporters!
Is this how you comfort Americans that you’re capable of doing the job? https://t.co/xKqLP5gJA1
— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) March 25, 2021
