President Joe Biden’s handlers have gone out of their way to keep the media from asking the president questions directly. After weeks of keeping him locked away, they are finally granting an interview to “Good Morning America” co-host and chief ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos’s interview will air this Wednesday, marking only the second sit-down network interview with Biden since speaking with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell prior to the Super Bowl.
The president is set to travel this week in order to discuss his administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package and will reportedly discuss the plan with Stephanopoulos, among other topics. Last Thursday, Biden gave an address on his administration’s Coronavirus plans — but has yet to deliver a solo press conference in his 54 days in office. Since 1923, all U.S. presidents have held a press conference within the 33-day mark, making Biden the first president in about 100 years to hold off.
In an editorial last week, even The Washington Post declared, “It’s past time for Biden to hold a news conference.”
“Mr. Biden should be eager to advertise his more thoughtful — reality-based approach. He should do so in front of reporters for extended periods of time, and more often than his late start would suggest,” The Post writes.
O’Donnell soft-balled Biden in his first primetime interview on Feb. 7, failing to push the president on the ongoing federal investigations into his son Hunter Biden. The CBS anchor went so far as to say “I’m sorry to get so personal,” making it abundantly clear that her aim of the interview with Biden was not to try and discover new truths about alleged criminal activity within the Biden family.
Stephanopoulos interviewed Biden at a town hall in October. He also failed to ask Biden about the Hunter Biden scandal, particularly the bombshell New York Post report that Big Tech colluded to censor. The report alleged that an email in 2015 from Hunter Biden to Ukrainian energy company Burisma holdings directly mentioned Joe Biden, which was on the heels of the then-nominee claiming he “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
#BREAKING: As expected, @ABC News and chief anchor/former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos made sure that there was NOT A SINGLE question about Hunter Biden at this #BidenTownHall.
Another example of censorship and collusion.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 16, 2020
Stephanopoulos is known for blurring the line between activist and journalist, getting slammed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on ABC in January for failing to report on the facts and showing biases.
You’re forgetting who you are as a journalist if you think there’s only one side. You’re inserting yourself into the story to say that I’m a liar because I want to look at election fraud and I want to look at secretaries of state who illegally changed the voter laws without the permission of their state legislatures. That is incontrovertible, it happened, and you can’t just sweep that under the rug and say, ‘Oh nothing to see here and everybody’s a liar and you’re a fool if you bring this up.’
“You’re inserting yourself into the story,” Paul added. “A journalist would hear both sides and there are two sides to this story.”
The ABC anchor notably directed viewers on air to a Democratic fundraising page in December, while speaking to actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of HBO’s “VEEP.”
“Tune into GMA Wednesday for my exclusive interview with President Joe Biden as he travels the country to sell his economic relief plan,” Stephanopoulos said on Sunday morning.
The White House may have finally granted access to the president, but with a former Clinton aide asking the questions, Americans should not expect to hear important answers about what the president is doing to address the border crisis or the re-opening of schools.
