President Biden’s first formal press conference is in the books, and it was deeply embarrassing to anyone who thinks the media’s job is to hold presidents accountable.
Taxpayer-enabled PBS White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor was the worst. She complimented the president: “You said over and over again that immigrants shouldn't come to the country right now. This isn’t the time to come. That message is not being received. Instead, the perception of you that got you elected -- a moral, decent man -- is the reason a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and are trusting you with unaccompanied minors.”
Mr. President, you’re a decency magnet! Biden replied “Well look, I guess I should be flattered people are coming because I’m the nice guy, that’s the reason why it’s happening.”
One overarching theme of the reporters Team Biden hand-picked was their lust for the destruction of the filibuster, channeling power-hungry leftists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who want a “big agenda.”
Alcindor followed up by noting AP’s Zeke Miller began the event by vaguely asking how far Biden was willing to go to override Republicans (hint, hint). She mentioned immigration, “related to the filibuster, but there’s also Republicans who are passing bill after bill trying to restrict voting rights, Chuck Schumer calling it an existential threat to democracy. Why not back a filibuster rule that at least gets around issues, including voting rights or immigration?”
Washington Post reporter Seung Min Kim echoed: “To follow-up on the filibuster, so, do you believe it should take 60 votes to end a filibuster on legislation or 51?”
CBS reporter Nancy Cordes repeated that the Republicans wanted to “restrict” voting for young people and minorities: “Is there anything else you can do about it, besides passing legislation?”
CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins didn’t rip into Biden like Jim Acosta. She doubled down on crushing the filibuster. “At John Lewis’s funeral, President Barack Obama said he believed the filibuster was a relic of the Jim Crow era. Do you agree?” Biden said yes. “Why not abolish it, if it’s a relic of the Jim Crow era?”
Was it racist when Senators Obama or Biden filibustered? No one asked.
How is it fair or factual to claim that Republican bills that require a voter ID at the polls, or a signature verification for a mail-in ballot is Jim Crow? CNN claims to be “Facts First”? This is a “Pants on Fire” lie.
The other dominant issue was immigration. ABC’s Cecilia Vega channeled the story of a nine-year-old illegal immigrant being sent to America by his mother. (There’s no criticism for the mother.) She lectured Biden that illegal immigrants are sleeping on floors.
Janet Rodriguez with Univision, which is both a TV network and an illegal-immigrant advocacy group, demanded to know when all these shameless border crossers were going to get a smoother entry: “When can we expect your promise of things getting better with contacting and expediting the process?”
To her credit, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked when Biden would allow the press inside an overcrowded facility for unaccompanied minors, and she was denied a serious answer. There were serious questions about Afghanistan and China and North Korea.
But overall, there were no questions allowed from outside the liberal-media bubble. Peter Doocy of Fox News was snubbed. It all felt carefully scripted, as Biden seemed to be reading some answers from a notebook. Most reporters pushed the president to be more partisan, more radical, to defeat allegedly racist and democracy-destroying and “restrictive” Republicans. It felt much more like a cozy Democrat strategy session than a press conference.
