Biden media-light presidency could end without closing press conference

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According to the University of Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project, Biden has held just 37 press conferences since entering office, the fewest for any commander-in-chief dating back to former President Ronald Reagan.

For comparison, President-elect Donald Trump held 88 press conferences in his first term in office, while former President Barack Obama held 163 across his two terms.

The Biden White House frequently defends Biden’s general eschewing of formal press conferences and interviews. White House spokesman Andrew Bates noted that the president has interacted with the press more than 630 times since entering office, including 50 interviews in 2024 alone.

The president did surprise reporters in early October by making his first appearance in the White House’s press briefing room to take a victory lap on positive economic indicators coming in for September.

But with just eight weeks until Trump’s second inauguration, and inflation back on the rise per the administration’s own statistics for October, the pressure is back on for Biden to answer questions about his performance in office and Trump’s electoral victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

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A closing press conference would be one of Biden’s final chances to try to write his own story, multiple Democratic strategists suggested to the Washington Examiner.

One Democratic campaign veteran said that Biden, a president who sought to reset the press-government relationship following “Trump chaos,” would appear “weak” if he skipped out on a final press conference like his predecessor.

But Jeffrey McCaull, a political communications professor at DePauw University, argued that “an end-of-administration presser as Biden goes out the door would certainly not help anything at this point.”

“His legacy, whatever citizens think of it, is already firmly established and won’t be affected by a press conference swan song,” he told the Washington Examiner. “His handlers would also be taking a huge risk that Biden would be ending his presidency with some clumsy or ill-advised remarks, thus cementing his reputation as being prone to gaffes.”

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DePauw criticized Biden for falling short of his stated goal of reestablishing normal relations with the media, and White House staff for extending the “basement” strategy that characterized his 2020 campaign in an effort to compensate for his advancing age.

“While it is true that his administration was not openly combative with the press in the way Trump’s first administration was, the Biden White House could hardly be considered press friendly,” he explained. “The president was generally not available to the press, either for sit down interviews or traditional press conferences. Biden can’t claim to have normalized press relations when he didn’t interact with the press.”

Political strategist Michael Hardaway broke from other Democrats who spoke with the Washington Examiner, stating that “Biden should ride off into the sunset knowing he created 16 million jobs, the best economy in the G7, and the best stock market run of this generation.”

Biden returned to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday after a weeklong trip to Peru and Brazil where he attended the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation and G20 summits. Biden also made history by becoming the first sitting American president to visit the Amazon rainforest.

Still, Biden actively avoided questions from reporters about Trump and his own legacy by opting not to hold either a solo or joint press conference with any of the foreign leaders.

A video captured of Biden departing Brazil showed reporters begging the president to field a few questions.

“Mr. President, happy early birthday! For your birthday, will you talk to us, sir?” one reporter can be heard shouting as Biden boards Air Force One. “As a gift to the press will you please talk to us? Mr. President! President Biden, please! We haven’t heard from you all trip!” 

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre teased a potential closeout presser from Biden during a gaggle on the president’s trip to South America. 

“He … regularly takes questions from all of you, and he is going to continue to engage with the press,” she stated, noting that Biden has two more months in office to hold a press conference. “And so, what I would say is stay tuned. He will continue to do that. And I just don’t have anything beyond that.”

Pressed Thursday to explain why the president had given reporters the cold shoulder on the trip, Jean-Pierre claimed that Biden was too busy meeting with foreign leaders, as it would likely be his last chance to do so while in office.

White House officials stress that Trump declined to hold a post-election press conference before departing office in 2021 as he contested the election results and refused to attend Biden’s inauguration. But both Obama and former President George W. Bush held press events before the conclusion of their second terms.

Obama held two press conferences following the 2016 election, with the first coming on Dec. 16, 2016, and the second on Jan. 18, 2017.

At the latter, the former president gave a quasi-pep talk to the nation as Trump was preparing to take office for the first time.

“What we’ve also tried to teach them is resilience, and we’ve tried to teach them hope, and that the only thing that is the end of the world is the end of the world, and so you get knocked down, you brush yourself off and you get back to work,” Obama stated when asked about daughters’ reaction to Trump’s victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “And that tended to be their attitude.”

Bush’s final press conference came on Jan. 12, 2009, when he sought to defend not only the country’s slide into the Great Recession but the ongoing quagmire in the Middle East.

Still, one of the most memorable moments of the Q&A came when the former president repurposed one of his more infamous gaffes, telling reporters that “sometimes you misunderestimated me” before thanking them for the years of coverage.

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On top of questions about the election and the future of the Democratic Party, Biden is in the midst of a couple of fights on Capitol Hill.

Passing a comprehensive government funding package is among Biden’s top remaining priorities, and the president is working with Democratic senators to confirm as many judicial nominees as possible before Republicans take control of both Congressional chambers.

Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.