Joe Biden's Press Conference Cheat Sheet Is Raising Eyebrows
How President Joe Biden did at his first formal press conference depends entirely upon whom you ask. To those who believe in the Democrats and their agenda, Biden's performance was a resounding success — and he even made this huge announcement. The president may have wanted to speak about the successes his administration scored in the battle to end the coronavirus pandemic, instead he fielded questions about his immigration policy, particularly with regard to unaccompanied minors. He addressed the ongoing debate about the fate of the legislative filibuster (via CBS News).
But where the Democrats saw success, the president's critics saw problems — one of the most glaring, involved Biden's graphic organizer, which one Candace Owens said had a particular name and a particular function: "Joe Biden had a cheat sheet with the names and faces marked of which journalists to call on, and he knew EXACTLY what questions would be asked of him. That was not a press conference — that was a play put on by bad faith actors in a pseudo-democracy" (via Twitter).
The cheat sheet may have been a part of a briefing book which was also seen as problematic, because as Fox News' Chris Wallace points out, "I was also struck by the fact that it seemed on every foreign policy question ... [Joe Biden] went to his briefing book ... and was reading obviously White House guidance, White House talking points. Covering Ronald Reagan for 6 years, I never saw that" (via Twitter).
Complaints about Biden's cheat sheet didn't sit well with supporters
The complaints about Biden's cheat sheet seemed jarring to the president's supporters. As one Twitter user posted: "This is modus operandi for someone who takes their job seriously. You continue to make your followers even more uninformed. Be careful that they don't soon find out you are a con working for policies that hurt them, the people you claim to support."
But that wasn't good enough for critics, one of whom tweeted: "I don't know what is scarier: A president who doesn't have the cognitive ability to answer random questions from the press, or a press who's willing to go along with this scripted show."
Biden supporters were also seething because it wasn't too long ago that a photo surfaced on Twitter and in The Washington Post, featuring then former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's briefing book, and tabs that had topics that went from "ABSURD", "CDC" and "CHINA" to "HATE," "SCHOOL" and "MEULLER" (sic).
And not to forget that former President Donald Trump also used a briefing book, most notably when he was photographed reading out a speech where the word "corona" was struck off and replaced with the word "Chinese" (via NBC News).