‘THINGS HAVEN’T BEEN GREAT’

White House Reporters ‘Privately’ Rejoicing at Biden’s Exit

MAGA 2.0 will likely afford the press corps more chances to speak with—and question—the president.

Some White House reporters are “privately” sharing their relief that Joe Biden—who was infamously kept at a comfortable distance from the press—is out of the Oval Office, the Columbia Journalism Review reported. The 82-year-old Biden agreed to “far fewer formal interviews than any president before him,” CJR reported. That is a stark contrast to how the attention-obsessed Donald Trump, who is known to text reporters or call into news networks at any given time, is expected to operate these next four years. Monday was an example of Trump’s accessibility, with him speaking freely to journalists as he signed a stack of executive orders at his desk. Earlier in the day, he pinged the phone of NBC News’ Kristen Welker to complain about Biden’s last-minute pardons. “We’re coming out of four years of Biden and things haven’t been great,” one print journalist told CJR. “There’ve been fewer eyeballs on the press briefings and less attention than under Trump, so people just don’t understand some of the very frustrating things that we’ve dealt with and that we hope are going to be rolled back.”