Biden White House risks cutting press honeymoon short with self-inflicted wounds

And with Biden’s “war-like undertaking” to respond to the coronavirus pandemic-created public health and economic crises, the president would benefit from maintaining as much goodwill with reporters as possible as the excuse of newness grows old.

White House Transition Project co-founder and Director Martha Kumar calls the relationship between a White House staff and the journalists covering them “an alliance.” That’s because both sides have “a shared interest in the same kinds of information.”

“After the initial stories, then the president starts taking positions where there are going to be people who don’t agree,” she said. “There’s a natural tension, but that doesn’t mean that the relationship isn’t productive.”

Kumar, who specializes in White House communications, said a honeymoon period of sorts tends to last until the administration becomes “active” in controversial issues. That turns the “alliance” into a “competition,” she noted.

There were times during this week’s first three daily briefings when Psaki verbally jousted with reporters from several major national media outlets — even telling one to avoid putting words in her mouth.

One of the first cracks to emerge in Psaki’s professional veneer came last weekend when she described her approach to managing an unruly press room in colorful terms.

“When reporters are getting really loud, or they’re starting to ask crazy questions, I just slow down my pace, and I talk very quietly, and I treat them like I’m an orderly sometimes in an insane asylum,” she told NPR.

It was not the first time in the past two weeks she risked repeating a mistake made by many of her predecessors: referring to the White House press corps in a condescending tone. The result typically is a combative briefing room, which hinders a spokesperson’s ability to push a president’s message.

In a friendly interview with fellow-Obama administration alumni Tommy Vietor for Pod Save America, the pair joked about questions, such as whether Biden is considering repainting Air Force One and why he moved former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office. But they also seemed to mock inquiries over Biden’s “markers” for unity, a key priority of his presidency.

“I’m like, ‘What does that even mean?'” Psaki said before defining it as a “vibe” Biden aimed to embody.

Psaki, one of former President Barack Obama’s White House communications directors and before that, the top State Department spokesperson before becoming a CNN contributor during the Trump administration, has been praised for reintroducing daily briefings that strive to be an information forum and her habit of “circling back” to questions she can’t answer in the first instance. Among her fans? Former White House press secretary and Dancing with the Stars contestant Sean Spicer, who had to defend Trump’s claims his 2017 inauguration crowd was the largest, “period.”

“She has done a very good job in her role, and, to some degree, I’m a bit jealous,” Spicer told Politico.

But some of her retorts have risked sounding hostile. That includes her comments on the White House’s stance concerning Trump’s Space Force initiative after a question from Bloomberg reporter Josh Wingrove.

“I asked @PressSec if President Biden planned to keep the Space Force, or its scope, and she declined to say,” Wingrove tweeted. “She poked fun at the question about an entire branch of the military as the ‘plane of today,’ referring to when she’d been asked about the Air Force One paint job.”

Psaki later tweeted that the administration looked forward to “the continuing work of Space Force.”

A day later, a reporter offered her a chance to apologize for her flippant remark. Psaki declined — even after some GOP lawmakers tweeted criticism of her Tuesday quip.

Psaki’s Space Force flub came after White House Correspondents’ Association complaints that administration communications staffers were asking reporters about their planned questions before Psaki’s briefings. Aides justified the queries as part of an effort to ensure her briefings were “useful and informative.”

“That two-way conversation is an important part of keeping the American people updated about how government is serving them,” a Biden spokesperson said.

Previous White Houses have conducted similar fishing expeditions, mostly through “gaggles,” or informal morning question-and-answer sessions before a more formal briefing. The gaggles were essentially an early-warning system of what was on the media’s radar.

To Barbara Perry, the University of Virginia Miller Center’s presidential studies director, it is “premature” to pronounce the end of Biden’s honeymoon with the press corps. Instead, she said reporters were simply jumping on any indication the “Kumbaya moment” might be over as they adjust to the dynamics of a new administration.

“If you want to use that metaphor, it would be like a couple on their honeymoon, and they have a little spat over something, and then people report the marriage is ending,” she said.

An adversarial press and “testy” exchanges with reporters better serve “the governed, not the government,” she said, quoting the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

However, Eric Schultz, a principal deputy press secretary under Psaki during the Obama administration, scoffed at the idea that Biden would even be afforded a grace period.

“The severity of the crises they face, the hostilities they endured from the outgoing administration, a burgeoning right-wing media that disingenuously tries to sabotage them at every turn, and the recalcitrant opposition they face from Republicans don’t add up to honeymoon; they add up to a profoundly challenging moment,” said Schultz, who now heads the public relations firm, the Schultz Group.

He added: “It’s always fun for reporters to navel gaze, but given what the country is facing right now, probably best to stay focused on what matters.”