Six months before the elections, Biden increasingly grumpy with the press

Is it the tension over the upcoming elections? Frustration over a campaign that isn’t going the way he wants? Denial in the face of gloomy polls? In any case, the American president Joe Biden He is increasingly in a bad mood with journalists.

The Democratic ruler, who will face his Republican predecessor (2017-2021) Donald Trump again in November for a second term, appears more acidic in front of the media.

“I prayed for all of you. They need help!”, he declared recently, as he left church, to a journalist who simply asked him how he had spent the day.

On Thursday, during a joint press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto, the 81-year-old leader grumbled: “You never keep your word.”

A journalist asked him both about the situation in Haiti and the conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. But the American president only planned to respond to “a question”. Finally, however, he ended up speaking briefly about the situation in the Middle East.

Biden’s campaign team criticizes the media, pointing out that they underestimate the danger that Donald Trump represents for democracy and for being more interested in Joe Biden’s age (81 years) than in the performance of the economy during his term, considered relatively good.

Far from attacking only conservative media, the Biden camp has developed particular hostility toward The New York Times, a prestigious newspaper considered center-left.

“Who turns a blind eye to the lies of donald trump? The New York Times!” shouted a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, after that medium dismantled, in February, some government statements about the progress of the economy. In any case, Biden has never attacked the press with the same virulence as Trump.

Keep your distance

But while the 77-year-old tycoon barely gets close to any microphone, Biden keeps his distance from them. He gives very few major press conferences, rarely gives interviews and never has informal exchanges on his plane trips.

Until recently, he sometimes answered two or three questions before boarding his helicopter and leaving the White House for an event.

But now, instead of walking alone to the aircraft, the president leaves surrounded by a group of advisors who act as a retaining wall before journalists.

This avoids questions and hides from the cameras how cautious the Democratic candidate has become. Joe Biden’s bad mood coincides with polls that show dismal results.

Several polls show him in difficulties against Trump, not necessarily in general voting intention, but in the so-called “undecided states”those six or seven who will effectively decide the elections.

On the one hand, Biden questions the solidity of the polls: “Nowadays it is difficult to do a rational survey. (…) You have to make so many phone calls” before reaching out to anyone, he said recently.

But, on the other hand, he analyzes those same surveys in search of favorable signals: “The press does not talk about it, but the dynamics are clearly in our favor,” he repeats to his followers.

The media loses momentum

“Is Joe Biden’s campaign based on false hopes?”: this is the title of an interview in the weekly New Yorker with a Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, who declared himself decidedly optimistic.

The analyst stressed, in a video released on Thursday, that no poll to date, no matter how favorable it may be, guarantees Trump the 270 voters necessary for final victory.

“We are not where we would like to be and we have a lot of work to do,” acknowledged Rosenberg, who, however, stressed: “without a doubt, I prefer to be in our place than in theirs.” in reference to the Republicans.

For better or worse, Biden should not forget that despite his frustration with the traditional media, they have less and less influence on voters.

According to a survey conducted in December by the University of Maryland and The Washington Post, 14% of Americans get their information for the first time from sources other than television, radio or newspapers. Only 5% of those surveyed cite, for example, the New York Times.

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