Last month, one of the more embarrassing moments of Joe Biden’s presidency was caught on tape for the world to see.
Biden, who was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to “reaffirm the historic partnership between the United States and Israel,” appeared to doze off at one point while Bennett was speaking, as we previously reported.
For those who missed it, here’s what happened:
Democrat apologists masquerading as fact-checkers had a field day playing word games in the aftermath in trying to convince people that what they saw in the video clips that circulated was misleading because Biden had been “alert in the beginning of the meeting.”
Unfortunately, two press sprays just last week involving Biden and other world leaders sitting and chatting in the Oval Office show that his public appearances with them are not getting any better. In fact, they are getting worse.
On Tuesday, Biden sat down with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. During their symbolic appearance together at the Oval Office, Johnson took questions from the UK press corps. But before Johnson could finish his answer, he was interrupted as Biden’s handlers could be heard in the background already beginning to yell at and herd the White House press corps out of the room in a scene we’ve become all too familiar with over the last two years, first with Biden’s campaign and now his presidency:
The incident infuriated some reporters, who immediately went to press secretary Jen Psaki’s office to file a formal complaint:
CBS News Radio White House correspondent Steven Portnoy reported that the members of the editorial pool immediately went to Psaki’s office to complain “that no American reporters were recognized for questions in the president’s Oval Office” as well as that the shouting wranglers had prevented anyone from understanding the answer to O’Keefe’s question.
Incredibly, when asked about the incident during Wednesday’s press briefing, Psaki blamed . . . Johnson:
On Friday, Biden met with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and as they sat down to talk, Biden told Modi that the Indian press corps was “much better behaved than the American press” and proceeded to urge him to not take questions “because they won’t ask any questions on point”:
Clearly, Biden had been instructed by his handlers to avoid a repeat of what happened during his appearance with Johnson by advising Modi to avoid taking questions altogether.
As the Daily Wire noted, Biden’s comments chastising the U.S. press in front of another world leader for not being well-behaved did not appear in the official White House transcript.
In addition to these awkward and humiliating moments, earlier this month, Biden caused an international stir when he seemed to forget Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s name during a virtual press event in the East Room of the White House involving the two as well as Johnson, at one point referring to Morrison as “that fella from down under” after he had just thanked Johnson by name.
“Thank you, Boris. And I want to thank that fella down under. Thank you very much, pal. Appreciate it, Mr. Prime Minister,” Biden said to Morrison, smiling as he turned back to face the camera to finish the remainder of his prepared remarks:
The foreign press covered Biden’s “fella down under” blunder extensively. U.S. coverage, on the other hand, was predictably muted.
Anytime you watch the clips of either Biden’s team shooing off the press or Biden himself turning his nose up at them, remember this is the same guy who promised during his campaign to rebuild the relationship between the White House and the media after four years of Trump’s contentious relationship with the press, which to those of us in the cheap seats meant time for things to get back to the “normal” way of journalists doing pillow plumping for a Democratic administration.
One big difference between Trump’s style and Biden’s style, of course, is that even though Trump was obviously no fan of the liberally-biased members of the White House press corps, he still took questions from them, an inconvenient fact but a fact nevertheless.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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