Joe Biden really, really seems to hate talking to journalists. According to the New York Times, he held fewer news conferences during the first two years of his presidency than any president since Ronald Reagan. The only other president to give so few press conferences? Richard Nixon. According to the Times, Biden has given only 54 press conferences since taking office—far fewer than Donald Trump’s 202 in his first two years, or Barack Obama’s 275. He’s also declined to grant interviews to the Times and Washington Post since taking office—a tradition honored by every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the possible exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mike McCurry, press secretary for former President Bill Clinton, told the Times that no president loves the idea of being needled by the press. “But at some level, you’ve got to have a process in the White House that respects that.”
Read it at New York Times
