The White House on Thursday skipped over questions submitted by the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., during President Obama’s question-and-answer session on Twitter.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president himself typed the replies and chose which tweets to respond to out of a batch of questions “curated” by White House staff. When asked why the White House ignored three tweets from Ryan, Earnest deflected and said the event was “an opportunity for people across the country to ask questions,” according to a report of the press conference Earnest held on Air Force One as Obama headed back to Washington from Baton Rouge, La.
The account @SpeakerRyan submitted questions to Obama using the hashtag the White House put out, #AskPOTUS, about the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Ryan’s account also encouraged people to ask Obama how “executive overreach … makes people more optimistic about politics.”
“What authority do you have to close Gitmo?” @SpeakerRyan asked. “Even Democrats supported restrictions that you signed into law.”
A spokesman for Ryan said he is disappointed that Obama did not respond.
