President Joe Biden made a lot of news in the close to two hour press conference a day ahead of the first anniversary of his Administration.
Some of it was good. Some of it was well…not so much.
Pointing out the progress his Administration has made since coming into office in COVID vaccines, the American Rescue Plan, the Economic Recovery (over six million jobs created and unemployment under four percent,) child poverty falling forty percent (for now) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan, the President, again, acknowledged that challenges remained (getting inflation under control, securing voting rights, and passing components of Build Back Better) and mistakes (like not producing COVID tests fast enough last fall) needed to be corrected.
Among the news Mr. Biden made at his conference was:
- COVID 19 is the new normal and society needs to adapt to the new reality where the virus becomes more of a seasonal illness as opposed to a full blown pandemic.
- Acknowledging that provisions of the Build Back Better legislation would be broken up and the parts everyone has agreed on (the climate provisions, child care, Universal Pre K) would be voted on.
- Inflation could be brought under control by getting the supply lines in order and passing Build Back Better.
- Challenging Republicans to say what they are for. Given their opposition to democracy, voting rights, tax cuts for the poor, lifting people up, Build Back Better, and mandating COVID 19 safety precautions, it is fairly easy to tell what they are against. The President should have made a better presentation articulating that.
- Claiming that he was surprised at the level of Republican opposition to his policies. Really. He was a Senator during the Bill Clinton Presidency. He was Barack Obama’s Vice President. The real surprise is the President did not see this coming from the former Party of Lincoln.
- Saying that the response to Russian aggression against Ukraine would be determined on the severity of the action. He also predicted that Putin would invade Ukraine. Mr. Biden tried to clean up his comments later but immediate post conference commentary from international sources on CNN showed people in Ukraine were in shock of the Biden comments.
- Questioning the integrity of elections if Trumpist officials get the power to influence vote counting and election certifications.
- Kamala Harris will be his running mate in 2024.
- Pledging to go out and meet the public more, seeking more advice from outside the White House, and campaigning hard for Democratic candidates in the 2022 elections.
Honestly, it was not Mr. Biden’s best performance in front of the press. The Presidents presentation (and responses) could have been better and more focused. Since the end of the press conference, White House staffers have been cleaning up his Ukraine comments.
It may be advisable to schedule another press conference in the near future for President Biden to clean up what he said today and get back in the right direction.
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I watched Biden’s press conference and I thought it was fairly good. The Ukraine comment about the “minor incursion” was unfortunate but later clarified. Biden actually talked a bit too much about Putin.
The questions from the press were like one assault after another and I thought that Biden handled it with grace. The man is 79 years old. Most people that age would have collapsed and been carried out by paramedics.
His first year would have gone better if BBB had passed the Senate. Biden may have exaggerated his surprise at Republican obstruction of everything he’s trying to accomplish, but I’m pretty sure he was blindsided by the traitors in the Senate, specifically Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
I cringed at pretty much every question the press asked.
Almost every single one of them was headline/click/sound-bite bait.
Some of the questions were basically “why do you suck so much” and “why won’t you admit that you suck so much”.
The media was broken before T4ump, the internet did that, but it’s just full time trash time now from all the major print, cable, and network outlets.
I’m not calling them fake news, I just saying they all pretty much suck at giving us real useful information.
“Almost every single one of them was headline/click/sound-bite bait.”
Yeah, thought Biden treated them with respect which was not reciprocated.
Democrats are criticized for their poor “messaging” but it’s hard to get a positive message out there when the media is so focused on whatever isn’t working at the moment.
Biden deserves credit for what he did manage to accomplish in his first year. No one seems to want to talk about that. Apparently, he’s expected to clean up Trump’s mess and solve all of the problems in the nation and the world to get his approval rating up to 50 percent.