Chris Wallace Grills Jen Psaki: ‘Why Has President Biden Been So Sheltered from the Press?’

Chris Wallace grilled White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on President Joe Biden’s availability to the press – or rather, lack thereof.

“Why has President Biden been so sheltered from the press?” he asked in an interview aired on CNN+ on Wednesday.

“In what way? He just did a press conference several weeks ago and he takes questions from the press nearly every day,” she replied.

“I’m gonna come back at you on that,” Wallace retorted. “In his first year, Joe Biden held two solo news conferences in the White House and he held five on foreign trips. And take a look at this: in his first year, Mr. Biden sat down for 28 interviews with reporters. That compares to 95 in the same period of time for Donald Trump and 162 for Barack Obama. By comparison, Jen, that’s sheltered.”

Psaki responded that Wallace should instead look at the number of times Biden has taken questions at the White House.

“He’s had two solo news conferences,” Wallace reiterated.

“No, no,” she protested. “Nearly every day at the White House. he takes questions from the White House press corps.”

“Yeah, but Jen–”

“Two questions, three questions, eight questions,” she continued.

After some crosstalk, Wallace hit back.

“I’ll tell you exactly why that’s different,” he stated. “Because when you’re standing there, you can a question, you can answer it, you can slough it off and you move on… It in no way compares to sitting down with a reporter for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and having–you can’t move away. You can’t duck it. You gotta sit there and answer the question and the follow up. It’s not the same thing.”

Psaki replied, “We can agree to disagree on that, Chris. I think how he has felt engaging with the press makes sense to him or works is how he used to do it in the Senate, which was to talk to reporters after he did events.”

The interview was cordial over all. Wallace even praised Psaki after it was over.

“The job of White House press secretary is tricky,” Wallace told viewers. “You represent that president, but you’re paid by the American people. Handling those sometimes dueling obligations is a delicate balance. But Jen has done as good a job at it as any press secretary I can remember, while restoring some much-needed civility to the White House briefing room.”

Watch above via CNN+