White House Reporters Call Out Biden For Skipping Traditional Joint Presser With Trudeau and Obrador
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White House reporters have called out the Biden White House for skipping the traditional joint presser between heads of state for the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are scheduled to visit the White House on Thursday afternoon.
CBS News White House reporters Fin Gómez and Kathryn Watson remarked that “[President Joe Biden] pitched himself as the return of normalcy and tradition when running for office against Mr. [Donald] Trump, so skipping the press conference came as something of a surprise to White House reporters this week.”
“In all eight summits held since their inception in 2005, there has been a trilateral press conference,” they continued. “Former President Obama hosted press conferences with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts in 2012, as did former President Bush in 2008 and 2005.”
Gómez and Watson noted that “at that last 2016 news conference, reporters were able to ask tough, even uncomfortable questions of Mr. Obama, Trudeau, and then Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto — in particular, about their responses to Mr. Trump’s GOP nomination, victory and the future relations between the U.S. and Mexico on issues like NAFTA and migration.”
Gómez and Watson continued:
Without a press conference Thursday, Mr. Biden will not be forced to answer questions about his decision to continue with Title 42, a controversial public health policy used at the Mexican border to rapidly expel migrants based on concerns about COVID-19. Mr. Biden has been roundly criticized by progressives and immigration advocates for continuing to rely on it to try to keep the numbers at the border down. A U.S. District Court judge in Texas has also determined the Biden administration improperly ended the “Remain in Mexico Policy.”
Nonetheless, the summit and news conference have generally projected a kind of continental unity, one that may have peaked during the Obama years.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she thought a press conference had been planned. But no press conference appeared on the president’s Thursday schedule released Wednesday night. The president does have a bill signing prior to his meetings with Trudeau and Obrador, and as always, it’s possible he could take questions then.
On Wednesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Chris Meagher told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Detroit, where Biden promoted the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which he signed into law on Monday, that there will be a pool spray at the top of the meeting in which Biden and likely the other leaders will make remarks and may give reporters the opportunity to ask questions before they are escorted out of the room. Ahead of the trilateral meeting, Biden will meet with each leader individually in which there’ll be a pool spray before each meeting, according to Meagher.
Washington Examiner White House reporter Naomi Lim also wrote about the planned absence of a joint press conference with the North American leaders: “The White House denied that it scrapped plans to host a press conference after President Joe Biden meets with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts because aides do not want Biden answering reporter questions.”
