On Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden will hold his first formal news conference—an event that, as increasingly frustrated reporters have pointed out, comes later in his presidency than his 15 most recent predecessors. Both sides have prepped extensively for the occasion, which will be the most extended period of questioning the president has faced since taking office, and which will likely challenge his ability to stick to his primary message of pandemic relief.
To help Biden prepare, aides have reportedly given him talking points on a range of topics, from immigration to the Senate filibuster. Gearing up to speak at length on less-rehearsed issues, Biden has been taking home briefing books on policy priorities, studying three-ring binders “typically organized by topic” with “contents typed out in 14-point font,” CNN reports. He is said to have participated in an informal practice session earlier this week and is viewing the news conference as a chance “to speak to the American people, obviously directly through the coverage, directly through all of you,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One.
Members of the press corps, meanwhile, are readying their questions for the televised event. TheGrio’s April Ryan told Politico that Biden needs to offer “concrete short-term and long-term approaches to issues the American people want answered.” Another reporter—among the 20 or so that Playbook reached out to ahead of the news conference, with many speaking on the condition of anonymity—said Biden’s ability “to articulate a specific, actionable plan for passing voting rights legislation” while Democrats control both houses of Congress is of chief importance; others said they’re eager to see whether the president will call on Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who was a thorn in Biden’s side during the campaign with questions about his son, Hunter Biden—a topic that tends to cause Biden’s temper to flare. According to CNN, advisers have worked to avoid the Hunter stink bomb in part by trying to foresee questions that could catch the president off guard. The New York Times’ Annie Karni told Playbook that “how he feels about unity when Republicans are set on depriving him of any successes” and “what kind of political capital is he willing to spend on gun control” are among the slew of “important topics we haven’t heard from him directly about.”
What the public has heard from Biden directly about is his American Rescue Plan, the legislative package he’s spent the past few weeks promoting in a press tour and reportedly plans to invoke during Thursday’s event by announcing a new vaccination goal. But since Biden’s team announced the news conference nine days ago—a lead time Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary for George W. Bush, called a “rookie mistake”—there have been two mass shootings (but no executive action on gun policy), an increased spotlight on the influx of migrants at the border, and criticism of lacking AAPI representation in Biden’s cabinet, among other issues.
Several ex-White House officials note that a president’s ability to navigate such an event against a backdrop of divisive and developing crises is inherent to the job and can define a presidency as much as legislative strides. “A White House earns its stripes by taking every challenge and then turning it into an opportunity to address an issue and move the ball forward,” former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to Barack Obama, told the Washington Post. “You can have the best-laid plans, but it doesn’t matter when you go toe-to-toe with reality.” Mike McCurry, former press secretary for Bill Clinton, told Politico that he thinks “most presidents are lucky if they bat 50-50 in staying on their message versus reacting to all the other things coming at them.”
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