Joy Behar and her co-hosts at “The View” say President Biden’s team is solely focused on avoiding “spin” and speaking “truth” when it requests press questions in advance.
The comedian addressed a Daily Beast report on Wednesday that White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s communications team has “probed reporters to see what questions they plan on asking.”
One of three sources told The Beast “the press can’t really do its job in the briefing room if the White House is picking and choosing the questions they want. That’s not really a free press at all.”
“This idea that [Ms. Psaki] can come up with spin, I think the reporters are quite aware of when someone is spinning and when they’re not,” Ms. Behar said, the media watchdog NewsBusters reported. “They would call her out on that, and this administration is very well prepared to say the truth, whereas the last one would just lie and spin and whatever. But you know I just think that, you know, it’s not a gotcha session. That’s what has to be understood.”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg claimed that anyone waving “red flags” about the Biden administration’s practice is being absurd.
“Does it occur to everybody that they have been in there probably for three weeks, and they might not have all the answers — have all the answers yet? Call me crazy,” Ms. Goldberg said.
“She can’t know everything,” Ms. Behar added.
Regardless, a source told The Beast that Mr. Biden’s team “pissed off enough reporters for people to flag it for the [White House Communications Agency] for them to deal with it.”
“Our goal is to make the daily briefing as useful and informative as possible for both reporters and the public,” a White House spokesperson told the website. “Part of meeting that objective means regularly engaging with the reporters who will be in the briefing room to understand how the White House can be most helpful in getting them the information they need. That two-way conversation is an important part of keeping the American people updated about how government is serving them.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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