OPINION:
In her first press briefing, President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki promised to bring “truth and transparency” back to the White House. But it’s now 55 days into the new administration and the Biden team has been anything but transparent.
The Biden administration issued a gag-order on the southern border, blocking all press requests to visit detention centers to take pictures or to tour the facilities. Border Patrol agents have been told to deny all media requests for “ride-alongs” with agents, and all stationed on the southern border are being told to forward all press requests to Washington for approval, according to NBC News.
President Biden hasn’t visited the southern border and likely won’t — because he would need to bring a press pool and cameras for the trip, which would reveal a humanitarian crisis is occurring. The reality of the situation would conflict with the narrative the Biden administration is trying to paint — that this is merely a “challenge” — a situation they “certainly” have a handle on, according to Ms. Psaki.
The U.S. is on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than it has in the last 20 years. The federal government plans to use the downtown Dallas convention center to hold up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers, as other holding centers have exceeded their capacity due to the surge. What’s more, four foreign nationals whose names match with individuals on the terror watch list have been stopped trying to enter the U.S. via the southern border since October, according to Fox News.
Those are the facts the Biden administration would like you to ignore, doing their best to kneecap journalists from seeing and reporting these developments.
President Biden is also one of the least accessible Presidents in history. He booked his first press conference for March 25, breaking a 100-year-long presidential record by waiting so long into his term to answer questions from the media. At his formal events, President Biden typically ignores the media, or gives brief, one-word answers to questions.
His press office has also come under scrutiny for trying to control the media. Biden’s communication staff was soliciting questions in advance of Ms. Psaki’s press conferences, the Daily Beast reported.
“The requests prompted concerns among the White House press corps, whose members, like many reporters, are sensitive to the perception that they are coordinating with political communications staffers,” The Daily Beast wrote.
In another effort to curb news-media access to the West Wing, the Biden administration has imposed a COVID-19 testing fee on reporters, and has capped the number of reporters allowed on White House grounds per day to 80. By contrast, under the Trump administration, any journalist with a “hard pass” was allowed into the White House.
Truth and transparency has evolved into lies and opacity. The Biden administration has proved in its early days, it’s more interested in controlling the narrative than it is confronting the truth.
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