Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden administration’s failure to provide access to journalists along the southern border and predicted softballs from reporters in President Biden’s first press conference this week.
Asked to comment on the new administration’s media transparency, Trump told Fox News‘s Harris Faulkner, “There is none.”
Biden is scheduled to hold his first press conference on Thursday as he grapples with a surge in the number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. The White House has, so far, refused to grant journalists access to detention facilities where these children are held.
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Trump predicted “softballs” from the journalists during Biden’s initial press conference.
“I hear the questions are all vetted,” Trump said before drawing a comparison with his time in office and charging that the media “protects” Biden.
“You might have the same people, but it’s a whole different set of questions. It’s ridiculous the questions that are asked [of Biden], you know, ‘What did you have for dinner?’ ‘What kind of ice cream do you have?'” he said. “They never talked to me that way.”
The White House has not yet announced plans and protocols for the briefing. Biden’s press team was criticized early for fielding potential daily briefing questions with press secretary Jen Psaki; Trump’s press operation also sometimes asked reporters for specific questions or topic areas they might ask about during his press conferences.
“The press is not a free press in our country,” Trump continued, saying Biden “doesn’t need them, because the press protects him totally.”
Trump waited 27 days before holding his first press conference. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush waited 20 days and 33 days, respectively.
Psaki has defended the wait, telling reporters that Biden “takes questions several times a week” in informal settings, such as when he departs the White House, for instance.
Trump, who held dozens of press conferences during his fourth year in office, said he enjoyed the back-and-forth with reporters, calling the briefings “the only way to get an honest word out.”
These largely ceased after the former president suggested that a possible treatment for the coronavirus may involve injecting disinfectant into the body, prompting public outcry.
The Biden administration has struggled to rebut criticism that it is failing to adequately deal with an increase in unaccompanied child migrants apprehended at the southern border. The White House is refusing access to journalists to facilities at the southern border, while photographs released by Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, show children held in overcrowded tent facilities.
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Bide is expected to become more personally involved in his administration’s messaging on the issue as it becomes a target of GOP lawmakers ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
