Critics of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have long complained that his campaign team shielded him from potentially tough questions from certain reporters.
New reports highlight those concerns by focusing on mainstream journalists who have expressed their own frustrations — including an allegation that the former vice president’s White House transition team disabled the chat function during a recent virtual news conference.
“A lot of folks here with questions”
The apparent move was detailed in multiple articles this week and came after mounting complaints that Biden largely avoids fielding questions from all but “favored journalists” and media outlets, as Daily Wire writer Emily Zanotti reported.
One Daily Beast reporter was quoted as calling on Biden’s team to “PLEASE go longer or at least hold more frequent briefings” given the fact that “tons of folks” are hoping to ask questions during the once-per-week video conference calls.
Zeke Miller of the Associated Press also weighed in, reportedly asking: “Any chance you can take a few more questions? There are a lot of folks here with questions.”
Another unnamed reporter wanted to know if there was “a point in saying we want to ask questions if you only call on the same small group every week.”
In response, however, journalists say the Biden team actually became less transparent by shutting down one of the only avenues by which they could express their frustration.
“Disabled the public chat function”
Sam Stein, who recently began a new position with Politico, tweeted that the “transition team appears to have disabled the public chat function” during the recent call.
He went on to describe the feature as “a place where [he] and others had been routinely complaining to them to take more questions.”
While much of the media spent President Donald Trump’s first term vilifying his treatment of reporters, Biden has proven that he is not above responding angrily to those asking inconvenient questions.
Last month, he bizarrely called Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy a “one-horse pony” in reaction to an inquiry about his son, Hunter Biden.
He has even turned his ire toward voters, telling one Michigan resident in March that he was “full of s—” for asking a question about gun control.
The post Biden team accused of disabling chat function for reporters during video conference first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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