WATCH: White House Spox Says The President ‘Never Shies Away’ From Taking Questions — Is She Serious?
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Do you believe the White House spokesperson or your own lying eyes?
On Friday, White House Communications Director, Kate Beddingfield appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and discussed Afghanistan.
At the end of the segment, she was asked if President Biden will answer questions after his scheduled appearance on Friday afternoon.
Beddingfield said that President Joe Biden “never shies away from taking questions” but she’s going to “let him decide” if he’d take questions or not.
The White House said Friday that President Joe Biden ‘never shies’ away from taking questions – after the president has been slammed for avoiding White House reporters’ questions amid the chaos in Afghanistan.
The statement about Biden’s willingness to face the press came as the White House communications team has kept Biden away from the reporters who follow him – and the president has avoided his typical proclivity to engage with them on issues of the day, even amid the unfolding international crisis.
Biden spoke from the White House on Wednesday about the coronavirus amid the evolving situation in Afghanistan, as his administration struggles to fire up a massive evacuation to get thousands of Americans, Afghans, and allied personnel out of the country after the fall of Kabul.
But he ignored a chorus of shouted questions about the situation there.
‘The president never shies away from taking questions, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told MSNBC in an interview Friday morning.
‘I’ll let him make a decision on whether he’s going to take questions this afternoon. But you saw he just did a full sit down interview on this just yesterday. So he is always willing to take questions, and I’ll let him decide if he is going to do that after his remarks today,’ she said.
Source: Daily Mail
The last time that Biden took questions from the media was on August 10 after the Senate passed the Infrastructure plan.
Beddingfield was referring to the “friendly” yet disastrous interview with Bill Clinton’s former hatchet man turned “serious” ABC News journalist, George Stephanopoulos.
?
“The president never shies away from taking questions.” pic.twitter.com/MyT0tcvg8a
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) August 20, 2021
Here’s the full segment with Beddingfield:
The “I’ll leave it up to him” is a tacit admission that the President is heavily handled by White House staff.
The “micro-manager” is himself micro-managed as we have seen with his scripted answers and his little staff-prepared cue cards when he occasionally does take questions.
President Biden’s lack of response to the failure in Afghanistan is a failure in itself.
Biden has refused to interrupt his vacation while thousands of Americans remain trapped in Afghanistan and the Taliban has taken over. It’s a major foreign policy crisis, but Joe won’t cut his trip to Camp David short to be the Commander In Chief.
Other than one brief interview with a friendly journo, the President has not taken questions from the press.
After Joe completes his 20-minutes in public, he’s refusing to take questions from the media.
It’s just incredibly bizarre.
After making no public appearances for four days — during a major foreign crisis — President Biden read a 20-minute speech off a teleprompter on Monday afternoon and took no questions. He immediately returned to Camp David. He had no events on his schedule Tuesday. On Wednesday, he gave another 20-minute speech about vaccine boosters off a teleprompter from Camp David, and again took no questions. Also on Wednesday, the president sat for an on-camera interview with George Stephanopoulos that did not go well. According to the White House public records, Biden has had two phone conversations with foreign leaders in the past ten days — one with Boris Johnson and one with Angela Merkel.
Source: National Review
Check out how President Never Shies Away From Questions has handled the White House Press Pool since the disastrous pull-out in Afghanistan.
This was after his The Buck Stops Here…But First, Let Me Blame Everyone Else speech:
Biden takes no questions after his press briefing on Afghanistan.@PeterAlexander yells: “What do you think of the Afghans clinging to aircrafts?” pic.twitter.com/zxGakgHP2L
— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2021
And this was after his speech saying that The Feds Are Forcing You To Be Triple Vaxxed And They’re Declaring War on Governors That Oppose Mask Mandates:
BREAKING: Biden (again) takes no question amid so much going in Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/H84XqtpMjX
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) August 18, 2021
After Biden’s first statement he flew right back to his vacation and after today’s statement he’s going right back to… his vacation.
I’d say those are some bad optics but I’m starting to think he just doesn’t care. pic.twitter.com/nnjEX3aFzI
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 20, 2021
At 1:00 pm Biden will deliver remarks about Afghanistan
At 2:00 pm he leaves the White House to resume his vacation in Delaware
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) August 20, 2021
The consistent snubbing of the media doesn’t look accidental.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has an official spokesman who has been interviewed by journalists from all over the world.
Before they took over Kabul, Taliban Spokesman, Muhammed Sohail Shaheen spoke to an Indian news outlet about the “new, tolerant” Taliban that is all for women’s rights*
*Women’s Rights are subject to the Taliban’s Middle Ages interpretation of the Koran.
They’ve been on the English-language Turkish public broadcasting network:
The Taliban spokesman shocked a BBC host when he called the show on August 15:
CNN on August 16:
The Taliban had a news conference on August 17:
Their Spox appeared on Sky News UK on August 17:
They’re also doing interviews with American media:
Even on PBS with Christiane Amanpour:
The Taliban wants to be recognized as a legitimate government, and they’re on a media blitz to push that view. They may have 8th Century views about women, but this is a savvy 21st Century media strategy.
President Biden is trying to hide from the press.
It’s embarrassing that the Taliban is mounting a better media campaign than the President of the United States.
As often happens, it’s one random, anonymous Twitter account that posts something that sums up the crux of the issue in a single tweet.
— Apathy (@Apathycase) August 20, 2021
