Biden and the Press: His First Press Conference
This week, President Biden had his first official press briefing since his administration came into office. I thought I would compare and contrast it to the average Trump press briefing.
During the conference, the president talked about his new goals for Covid vaccinations, the economic stimulus bill that was passed, and answered questions regarding immigration and border control, voting rights, climate change, and the occupation of troops in Afghanistan. He was also asked about his promised bipartisanship with Mitch McConnell.
While speaking about these issues, Biden did not call anyone names. Trump would often question the intelligence of the reporters (mainly the female ones) when he was asked a difficult question or one he felt was 'threatening' to him. Biden did not make any grand promises that he knew he couldn't keep but was reassuring that the issues would be handled with care, compassion, and to the best of the administration's abilities. Trump would often make grand, ridiculous claims and promises and recite straight-up lies to the American people during his conferences, while claiming anything else was 'fake news'.
There is an obvious difference in how the Biden administration wants to be portrayed, and the personalities of the former president and the current.
Sources: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/25/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference/
I agree that press conferences are a good bellweather for the incoming administration's policy with regards to the media. The texts made a large case out of the different administrations' relationship with the media, and this well could be the first pro-media president in the last 20 years or so. It will be interesting to see how the relationship develops once the media begins being critical of his presidency(if they do, I suppose).
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree that the entire "feel" of the press conference differed than anything we have seen in the last four years under Trump's administration. It'll be interesting to see how his press conferences down the line go and if he will become more comfortable in calling on questions.
President Biden was very insightful on the government's measures in the distribution and vaccination processes within the country (Mervis, 2021). He highlighted the effort made by necessary agencies in surpassing the initial targets of a hundred million vaccine doses in the first 100 days in offices. However, when the former President gave briefings about the COVID-19 pandemic, he ensured the whole briefing was about him (Rutledge, 2020). His ridicule and insensitive utterances on these serious issues damaged the prevention protocol instituted to prevent the spread of the virus. Usually, he distracted attention from the important updates on the public health emergency delivered by the government scientists to blaming other countries for the pandemic's origin. Regularly, he conducted the briefing without wearing face masks or emphasize on citizens to wear them. Moreover, unlike President Biden's polite response to journalists' questions, this was different from the Trumps era. Usually, he responded sarcastically, mostly with abusive comments (Rutledge, 2020). When the questions were tough, he would attack the journalists’ intelligence and lower their demeanor to avoid sensitive questions.
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