WASHINGTON : In what’s become a familiar scene, President Joe Biden lingered after delivering a recent speech on the pandemic as reporters fired a barrage of questions.
He bristled at a query about the shortage of COVID-19 rapid tests, answered another about omicron-spurred travel restrictions and sidestepped a third about whether Sen. Joe Manchin failed to keep his word when he torpedoed Biden’s social services and climate spending plan.
“I’m not supposed to be having this press conference right now,” Biden said at the end of a meandering response that didn’t directly answer the question about Manchin.
Seconds later, Biden turned and walked out of the State Dining Room, abruptly ending what’s become his preferred method for his limited engagements with the press.
As Biden wraps up his first year in the White House, he has held fewer news conferences than any of his five immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies, and has participated in fewer media interviews than any of his recent predecessors.
