A few days before his State of the Union address in March, President Biden called in to “Afternoon Vibes,” a popular radio show in Charlotte, N.C. The host, Jessica Williams, asked him if he would list his accomplishments, say why he had decided to run for a second term and explain what was at stake for Black voters in the election.
That same day, Mr. Biden called into “DeDe in the Morning” in Dallas, where he was asked if he would list his accomplishments, say why he had decided to run for a second term and explain what was at stake for Black voters in the election.
Nine days later, the president called into a third show, this time in Milwaukee. “What do you think is at stake in this election for Black Americans specifically?” the host, Michelle Bryant, asked.
A close look at more than two dozen radio and podcast interviews given by Mr. Biden over the past two years reveals a distinct pattern: In appearance after appearance, the president has been served up nearly identical questions, prescreened or suggested ahead of time by campaign staff members. And in nearly every case, the questions set the president up to deliver on-message talking points, without notable flubs.
The review sheds light on a tactic the Biden campaign has used liberally to control the president’s interactions in public, one that appears to have accelerated as the election has approached. Mr. Biden has given fewer interviews with news outlets than any modern president, and many of those have been with friendly interviewers, rather than journalists, who take questions and talking points from the campaign.
Mr. Biden is far from the only politician to dodge the scrutiny of traditional news media or to try to game interviews to avoid awkward moments. But his reliance on a protective bubble has taken on new importance in the wake of his fumbling debate performance last month, a disastrous live question-and-answer session that sent his party into a panic over whether he is up to the task of defeating former President Donald J. Trump.
As increasing numbers of Democrats call on him to end his run, and others pressure him to prove that he can communicate effectively, he will hold a solo news conference with the White House press corps on Thursday — his first since November.
Last week, the Biden campaign acknowledged that it has frequently suggested questions to interviewers after The Associated Press reported that two radio hosts said they had been fed questions in advance of interviews broadcast on July 4. One, Andrea Lawful-Sanders of WBUR in Philadelphia, left her job with the station after the revelation.
“It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer,” Lauren Hitt, a Biden campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their viewers.”
The campaign indicated that it would stop suggesting questions for interviews.
Not every interview with Mr. Biden seemed to include pre-baked questions, which came most often in radio, rather than on-camera, interviews, to which the president can call in from the White House and do several in succession. In some cases, hosts asked only the questions they were given, while in others, they added questions of their own choosing.
In conversations with The New York Times, host and producers of some of those shows said the questions had not been imposed on them, and interviewers had not been barred from bringing up other topics. In some instances, they said, Biden campaign staff members emailed questions to ask; in others, they sent bullet points that hosts could easily rephrase as on-air queries.
“They did want us to ask four specific questions,” said George Cook, the head of content and the general manager for the company that produces “DeDe in the Morning,” which is syndicated on more than 80 stations nationwide. He said musicians and celebrity guests often send in questions before interviews. His hosts tend to ignore them, he said, but “because it was the president, it was different.”
Ms. Williams said she had received an email with bullet points a couple of days before the interview, which lasted just over 10 minutes. “It’s the president,” she said. “He’s not calling me to say, ‘Hey, girl, how you doing?’”
Ms. Bryant did not respond to requests for comment.
At least once, the Biden campaign has specifically asked an interviewer not to mention certain topics. The campaign, through a social media marketing firm it has retained, offered Joshua Doss, a Chicago-based influencer, a possible interview with the president at next month’s Democratic National Convention but asked that he not bring up the war in Gaza.
Elected officials from both major parties have increasingly turned to podcasters, influencers and entertainers, rather than journalists, to get their message out.
Mr. Trump often turns to the safe space provided by right-wing influencers and conservative media figures, rather than face potentially difficult questions from mainstream journalists. Last month, for example, his campaign canceled an interview with a local television station in Virginia after reviewing questions submitted by the reporter.
For Mr. Biden, friendly environments appear to have helped him stay on message while speaking to constituencies critical to his re-election chances, and to have done so without notable flubs or lapses. But the practice does little to assuage concerns that the president is ill-prepared to defend his record when he is forced to go off script or improvise.
“It’s toxic,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor of political science at Towson University in Maryland who tracks interactions between presidents and the news media. “There’s an element of panic when you’re doing that kind of thing. It’s not a signal that you want to send.”
As president, Mr. Biden has sat for 133 interviews through July 10, compared with 379 for Mr. Trump and 513 for President Barack Obama at the same point in their presidencies, according to data compiled by Ms. Kumar. Mr. Biden also lags behind on news conferences, giving just 37, fewer than half as many as Mr. Obama had at the same juncture in his first term and scarcely a third of the total given by Mr. Trump in the same period.
In response to criticisms about the frequency of his interviews with news outlets, Mr. Biden and his staff have often pointed to interviews that appear to have included stock questions provided ahead of time by the campaign.
On May 15, for example, the president sat for two interviews on radio shows with large Black audiences in which he was asked about the stakes for Black voters in the election, his accomplishments for African Americans, what steps he would take to protect the Affordable Care Act and how he can assure citizens that their vote counts.
Both interviews aired on July 4 and also included questions about the election stakes for Black voters, a query that has been presented to Mr. Biden at least 10 times in interviews in the past year, The Times found. Earl Ingram, the host of one of those shows, told The A.P. that he had been sent four questions in advance. “There was no back and forth,” he said.
Tony “El Tigre” Arias, the host of a show on the Radio Campesina network who interviewed Mr. Biden in November, said he and his producers wrote four questions ahead of time that they submitted via email to the campaign for approval.
Mr. Arias said he did not consider himself a journalist and felt he owed the president the opportunity to clear questions in advance. “For that caliber of person,” he said, “it’s a matter of respect.”
The post Biden Campaign Has Long Fed Softball Questions to Friendly Interviewers appeared first on New York Times.
