Biden Jokes He'll 'Take Zero Questions' as Correspondents' Chief Needles Him: 'Maybe Not as Many as We Would Like' (April 29, 2023)

The head of the White House Correspondents’ Association took a shot at President Biden’s press access at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 29, 2023. Presidents “invite us in and take our questions,” said NPR’s Tamara Keith, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, before turning to Biden: “Though, sir, maybe not as many as we would like.”

Biden made the same point about himself when he took the stage. The dinner, he joked, “sums up my first 2 years in office. I’ll talk for 10 minutes, take zero questions, and cheerfully walk away” [1]. The video above shows Keith’s remark. Her words are transcribed by HYGO News from the video, because HYGO News found no published transcript of her speech. Biden’s quotes are from the official White House transcript, published by the American Presidency Project.

”Maybe Not as Many as We Would Like”

“Every president privately and sometimes publicly bridles at his news coverage, and yet they invite us in and take our questions,” Keith said in her remarks at the Washington Hilton. “Though, sir, maybe not as many as we would like.”

Keith had made the same case in an interview with Deadline the day before. “In terms of the relationship between the president and the press, they are not doing a lot of press conferences, and we’ve had to really advocate to get the ones that we’ve gotten,” she said, calling it “quite frustrating” [2].

The White House’s view, Deadline noted, was that Biden takes questions on his way to Marine One or after delivering a statement. Keith said those impromptu sessions “tend to be extremely short, like one or two minutes,” with questions “shouted often and shouted over the clamor of aircraft” [2]. A formal press conference, she argued, allows “for the press to ask longer, more thoughtful, more nuanced questions and for the president to provide longer, more thoughtful, more nuanced answers.” As for the White House, she said, “They don’t seem wildly persuaded by our argument.” The association’s job, she said, “is to advocate for the full press corps to be able to get eyes on the president on a regular basis” [2].

”Take Zero Questions”

Biden opened on a serious note. “The free press is a pillar—maybe the pillar—of a free society, not the enemy,” he said, and called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, jailed in Russia, and journalist Austin Tice, held in Syria. “Journalism is not a crime,” he said [1].

Before the dinner, Biden and the first lady met privately with Gershkovich’s parents and sister, according to the White House pool [5].

Then he turned to the jokes, starting with his age. “I believe in the First Amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” he said. “I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. It’s on everybody’s mind” [1].

He blamed the coverage on the press, reading what he called a New York Times headline: “Biden’s Advanced Age Is a Big Issue. Trump’s, However, Is Not.” Then he admitted the line came from a parody account: “Sorry, that was a New York Times Pitchbot. I apologize” [1].

“You call me old? I call it being seasoned. You say I’m ancient? I say I’m wise. You say I’m over the hill? Don Lemon would say that’s a man in his prime,” Biden said, days after CNN let Lemon go [1][3].

Shots at Fox, Murdoch and MTG

Biden saved some of his sharpest lines for Fox News, which had just split with host Tucker Carlson and settled Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit [3]. Biden put the settlement at “$787 million” in his joke [1].

“Look, it’s great the cable news networks are here tonight: MSNBC, owned by NBC Universal; Fox News, owned by Dominion Voting Systems,” he said. “And hell, I’d call Fox honest, fair, and truthful, but then I could be sued for defamation” [1].

He took aim at Fox’s owner, too. “You might think I don’t like Rupert Murdoch. That’s simply not true. How could I dislike the guy who makes me look like Harry Styles?” And he jabbed a Republican congresswoman: “If you find yourself disoriented or confused, it’s either you’re drunk or Marjorie Taylor Greene” [1].

Near the end, he turned serious again, warning of “a poison” running through “parts of the extreme press” and “lies told for profit and power” [1].

As for talking “for 10 minutes,” the pool reporter clocked Biden at “just over 20 minutes.” He closed by putting on his aviator sunglasses and introducing comedian Roy Wood Jr. as “Dark Brandon” [5].

A Slow Start

The press corps’ frustration went back to the start of Biden’s term. He waited 64 days after his inauguration to hold his first solo news conference, on March 25, 2021, according to the American Presidency Project [8]. HYGO News covered that session in its report on Biden’s first press conference.

That was the longest wait of any president in the project’s records, which go back to Calvin Coolidge. Donald Trump held his first solo news conference 27 days into his first term, Barack Obama after 20 days and George W. Bush after 33. The average from Calvin Coolidge through Trump was 14 days [8].

By the Numbers

Keith’s complaint is borne out by the American Presidency Project’s count of presidential news conferences.

37: News conferences Biden held in four years, solo and joint, according to the project [4].
9.25 a year: Biden’s average, the lowest of any president since Ronald Reagan’s 5.8 a year [4].
22 a year: Donald Trump’s first-term average, with 88 news conferences [4].
64 days: How long Biden waited for his first solo news conference, against an average of 14 days for presidents from Coolidge through Trump [8].
3: Solo news conferences in Biden’s third year in office, which began in January 2023, by the project’s count [4].
About 2,600: People at the 2023 dinner, according to White House figures in the pool report [5].

The project also counts informal “exchanges with reporters.” It recorded 490 for Biden over four years, an average of 123 a year, compared with 178 a year in Trump’s first term and 274 a year so far in his second [4].

What Happened Next

Gershkovich came home. On Aug. 1, 2024, Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza were freed under a deal with Russia. “All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia,” Biden said in a statement [6].

The age question did not go away. Biden was running for a second term, as he noted at the dinner, but on July 21, 2024, he announced he would “stand down” and not seek reelection, saying it was “in the best interest of my party and the country” [7][1].

The press conference gap stayed. In the last year of his term, from January 2024 to January 2025, Biden held four news conferences, according to the American Presidency Project [4].