Jean-Pierre: “Entirely Normal” For Biden To Have Pre-Written Questions From Reporters At Presser
On 4/27/2023, Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the photo of President Biden holding what appeared to be a cheat sheet of a reporter’s question at White House press briefing, claiming it was “entirely normal.” At a joint press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, a photographer caught an image of Biden’s notes which signaled that he would receive a question from Los Angeles Times journalist Courtney Subramanian on domestic manufacturing, which he did. The issue was brought up at the press briefing the following day.
“The L.A. Times said that their reporter did not submit any questions in advance at yesterday’s press conference. So, to people who saw that pocket card, can you explain how that ended up there and why the president needed something like that?” Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich asked Jean-Pierre.
Reporter: The LA Times said that their reporter did not submit any questions in advance of yesterday’s press conference. So to the people who saw that pocket card, can you explain how that ended up there and why the President needed something like that?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: … It is entirely normal for a President to be briefed on reporters who will be asking questions at a press conference and issues that we expect they might ask about. It is not surprising that yesterday we would anticipate questions that he did receive — right? — on the visit with — with the South Korean President, as the South Korean President was sitting — standing to his — to his right, or about 2024. That was completely expected. Or about the debt ceiling, which he took questions at the end — shouted questions at the end.
… look, we — we do not have specific questions in advance. That’s not something that we do. And, in fact, I would point out the questions that was asked was different than what was on the card that you all saw.
And, look, again, we have these press conferences. The President takes your questions. We always — our job is to get a sense of what you all want to ask him. That is our job here, to get a sense of what’s
Q: How are the reporters decided?
Reporter: How are the reporters decided?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So — so the way that we have moved forward with this type of process is that we reach out to a number of reporters who — who we’re going to — who we know are going to be at the press conference, and that’s what we did yesterday. And also, we try to be really mindful on who — who has not gotten a question in a while. And — and so, as you know, we could only pick two reporters yesterday, so that limits our ability on how many reporters we can call on. Mary is not here, but I can say one of the reasons that we — we picked Mary is because she was just named Chief White House Correspondent for ABC and had not gotten a question in some time. And we picked the Los Angeles Times, which has gotten a — which has not gotten a question in some time …
Karine Jean-Pierre Won’t Say If Biden Had Other Reporter Questions Given To Him Ahead Of Presser
Reporter: And, just to be clear, people — skeptics who saw the card and saw the question number one and might think that that is a signal that it was preorganized — did the President have other questions that he was prepared — you know, had similar talking points in case he was asked something on other topics in that same —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Jacqui, I’m going to be … we talk about an array of — of topics that could potentially come up. And that’s what we do. Just at the end, there were shouted questions. And he took those shouted questions. But we also had a sense that, “Hey, you know, you might get something on a debt ceiling,” which makes a lot of sense, which is one of the news of the day. So we cover an array of topics … So we do our best to make sure that the President is ready to communicate with all of you …
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Biden’s reporter cheat sheet ‘Entirely normal’, Won’t Say If Other Pre-Written Questions Ahead Of Presser