In a testy exchange with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday, WOR White House correspondent Jon Decker asked if the current administration is protecting President Biden from having to answer questions from reporters. Jean-Pierre raised eyebrows and voices of dissent in the press corps by responding that Biden answers more “shouted questions” than other commanders-in-chief have done. Decker appeared on WOR 710’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to explain what happened during the heated debate.
“I would not be bragging about the fact that this President takes a lot of shouted questions,” Decker told Berman and Riedel. “The reason there are a lot of quote-unquote ‘shouted questions’ is because he will not take questions in any format, and so we have no recourse but to shout our questions to President Biden; of course, he does not answer most of those questions.”
However, Decker disagreed with Riedel’s assertion that the administration is shielding the president to hide a possible decline in his cognitive abilities. “For whatever reason, Joe Biden himself has referred to himself as a gaffe machine. That’s not me talking, that’s Joe Biden saying that, and maybe that’s the reason. Maybe the reason is because they’re just concerned about fumbles that he makes on a regular basis, and the best way to avoid those fumbles is to just not put him in a position where he’s taking questions to make those fumbles.”
Decker, who has asked questions of every president since Bill Clinton, did concede that Biden’s paucity for answering questions raises other concerns. “You’re the president. You should be able to handle anything. You should be able to handle questions, especially when you have to go up against adversaries like Vladimir Putin. Don’t be afraid of us, you know; show the world that you can handle the tough questions coming from the press corps.”
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