President Joe Biden and members of his administration have spent much of their first 100 days struggling to put forward a clear message on everything from COVID-19 to immigration.
Composed of seasoned Obama administration and Democratic campaign veterans, the Biden White House’s communications shop was heralded as a welcome departure from the Trump administration’s often scattershot operation. But the Biden White House has at times failed to clarify things that the president has said or has contributed to the confusion surrounding some of its policy rollouts.
BIDEN’S UNFORCED IMMIGRATION ERRORS LOOM LARGE AS 100TH DAY IN OFFICE NEARS
And the press shop struggled to message a controversy of its own in February, when a communications staffer faced scrutiny for allegedly berating a female reporter who was working on a story about his romantic relationship. White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the decision not to fire the staffer amid criticism of his behavior until he resigned.
Biden himself has driven much of the messaging chaos, however, with his tendency to wander off-script or say inaccurate things.
SCHOOL OPENINGS
Biden vowed to reopen America’s schools during his first 100 days in office — but he and other officials appeared to try to move that goal post after Inauguration Day.
In February, Psaki told reporters that the administration’s goal was only to have teachers back in the classroom with their students “teaching at least one day a week in the majority of schools by day 100.”
Her comment sparked instant confusion because, in many districts across the country, that benchmark had already been met, and her characterization of the reopening goal seemed at odds with the full return to in-person learning that Biden had promised.
At a CNN town hall event the following week, Biden contradicted his press secretary.
“There was a mistake in the communication,” Biden said when pressed about what the White House’s goal actually was.
“What I’m talking about is, I said opening the majority of schools in K-through-8th grade because they’re the easiest to open, the most needed to be opened, in terms of the impact on children and families having to stay home,” he added.
IMMIGRATION ‘CRISIS’
As record numbers of migrants have surged to the U.S.-Mexico border since January, White House officials have resisted labeling the situation a “crisis” — a rhetorical distinction that has irked Republicans who watched Democrats apply the label aggressively to a less-severe migrant surge under the Trump administration.
Biden seemed to depart from that strategy over the weekend when he spoke to reporters after a round of golf and said the situation at the border was a “crisis.”
But the White House quickly attempted to walk his word choice back. Psaki said on Monday that “there is no change in position” and argued that the massive number of unaccompanied children arriving at the border was “not a crisis.”
REFUGEE CAPS
The White House has also struggled to articulate its decision on raising the limit on how many refugees the United States will admit per year — or not raising it, as the White House announced last week.
Biden had said during a speech at the State Department in February that he would lift the refuge cap put in place by former President Donald Trump.
Trump had set the cap at 15,000 refugees admitted per year. But the White House, in a statement on Friday, announced plans to accelerate the admissions process while leaving the 15,000-person limit intact.
Psaki had repeatedly told reporters as liberal pressure mounted on Biden that he still intended to uphold his promise, saying just two days before the announcement that “the president remains committed to raising the refugee cap, and I can assure anyone who has concerns that that remains the case.”
Following the backlash over Biden’s decision not to raise the cap, the White House reversed course once again a few hours later. Officials released a new statement promising to reveal a higher refugee cap within the next month.
VOTING LAWS
The president repeatedly made claims about Georgia’s recent voting reform law that earned him scrutiny from fact-checkers and put his press secretary on defense about his false statements.
Biden said the law would now force polling locations to close at 5 p.m. “so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” That is not true; the law placed no new limits on voting hours and actually expanded voting hours in many places. Even so, Biden repeated the misrepresentation on several occasions, including at his first press conference since taking office.
Asked whether Biden planned to correct his characterization of the law given that it was inaccurate, Psaki said Biden was referring only to the idea of the law making voting more difficult for Georgians.
“The fact checkers will also tell you that this bill does not make it easier for people across the state of Georgia to vote, and that’s where he has concerns,” Psaki said.
Biden also pressed Major League Baseball to move its All-Star game out of Atlanta, which MLB did the following day, creating a controversy. Psaki argued Biden had never asked the league to move its event, however.
“I’m not here to call for anyone, on behalf of the president or the vice president or anyone, to take steps in reaction to the law in Georgia,” Psaki said during a press briefing in which she argued Biden didn’t prompt MLB to move the game. “The president was asked a direct question, and the context of the question was also around the League meeting to discuss this exact issue, and he answered the question.”
GUN SHOWS
Biden also made inaccurate claims while announcing executive action on gun control earlier this month.
During a speech in the Rose Garden, Biden said: “You go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check.” This is a misleading portrait of how firearm purchases work at gun shows; licensed vendors are required to run background checks, and studies show most vendors at gun shows are licensed.
What’s more, in 16 states and Washington, D.C., universal background check laws already exist.
Psaki was asked during a subsequent press briefing whether Biden believed that firearm purchases at gun shows do not require a background check.
“No, it’s not his belief. He believes that gun — that background checks should be universal,” she said.
VACCINE PLANS
Biden and other White House officials have sent mixed messages about the timeline of their vaccine distribution plans.
Less than a week into his presidency, Biden said his administration was upping its goal for the daily administration of vaccines from 1 million shots per day to 1.5 million shots per day.
“I think we may be able to get that to 1.5 million a day, rather than 1 million a day,” Biden said on Jan. 25.
The next day, however, Psaki said the administration’s goal was not, in fact, to deliver 1.5 million shots daily.
“The president didn’t actually say, ‘The new goal is.’ The president said, ‘I hope we can do even more than that.’ And that is certainly, of course, his hope,” Psaki told reporters on Jan. 26.
Before the administration said all adults could receive their shots if they wanted them by mid-April, Biden also sent mixed messages about the coming availability of vaccines.
On Jan. 25, a reporter asked Biden whether anyone who wanted a vaccine would be able to get one by the summer.
“No, I think it’ll be this spring,” Biden said in response. “I think we’ll be able to do that this spring.”
The next day, Psaki said Biden actually meant to say that there would be “greater availability” of the vaccine by the spring.
“Everybody won’t be eligible this spring,” she clarified.
‘NOT DOING THE BORDER’
Biden announced on March 24 that Vice President Kamala Harris would take charge of stopping the dire situation at the border.
“I’ve asked her, the VP, today, because she’s the most qualified person to do it, to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border,” Biden said when he announced the new addition to her portfolio.
But Harris’s aides were quick to downplay what Biden had said, and administration officials were soon recasting her role in a way that created confusion after headlines had trumpeted Harris as the administration’s new border point woman.
Two days later, Symone Sanders, Harris’s senior adviser, said the vice president was “not doing the border.”
Psaki has since repeatedly stressed that despite the president having announced Harris as focused on a range of migration-related issues, Harris is focused only on addressing the “root causes,” or the poverty and instability in Central America, that drive migrants to the U.S.
Biden had, however, said on March 24 that Harris’s migration portfolio included “work[ing] with those nations to accept the returnees, and enhanc[ing] migration enforcement at their borders.”
OK TO TRAVEL?
As more people received their COVID-19 vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance on April 2 that said travel poses a “low risk” for fully vaccinated adults. The CDC recommended that adults can resume domestic travel.
Later on that same day, however, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky contradicted her agency’s guidance by saying she “would advocate against general travel overall.”
“We are not recommending travel at this time,” Walensky said.
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Her comments caused confusion about what the administration’s guidance actually was, given that the CDC’s language indicated that it “recommends that fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves” without even needing a COVID-19 test or any quarantining.
