White House Correspondents’ Association Hammers Biden for Complaining About Questions: We ‘Would Welcome More Opportunities’ to Ask Them

The White House Correspondents’ Association fired back at President Joe Biden after he complained about a question he received at a press conference on Thursday, even hinting at its members’ displeasure with Biden’s availability to the media in a sharp statement.

On Thursday, Biden rebuked Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove, who asked him about the war in Gaza and Hamas’ refusal to accept his ceasefire deal.

“Wish you guys would play by the rules a little bit,” replied Biden. “I’m here to talk about a critical situation in Ukraine. And you ask me another subject. I’ll be happy to answer in detail later. But the bottom line is that we made an agreement. I’ve laid out an approach that has been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, by the G7, by the Israelis. And then the biggest hang-up so far is Hamas refusing to sign on even though they have submitted something similar. Whether or not it comes to fruition remains to be seen.”

“We’re

going to continue to push. I don’t have a final answer for you,” he added.

The White House Correspondents’ Association directly addressed Biden’s remarks in a statement that read:

The White House Correspondents’ Association believes it is in the public interest to make clear that at a presidential press conference, at home or abroad, there are no preconditions regarding question topics.While the White House does determine the number of reporters the president will recognize, it is up to professional journalists to decide what to ask.Any leader may prefer that reporters ask only one question or ask only about a topic that is of most interest to the president or another world leader, but a free press functions independently.WHCA would welcome more opportunities to pose a range of questions to the president in a press conference setting.

The last line about welcoming more opportunities to quiz Biden is particularly poignant given the president’s lack of availability to the press.

As a New York Times piece from last spring noted, Biden gave fewer interviews during his first two years in office than any president since Ronald Reagan. In another statement issued this April, the Gray Lady accused Biden of setting a “dangerous precedent” by bypassing the Fourth Estate, characterizing it as “troubling” that he “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”