Politics

Biden says “yes” he thinks VP Harris is doing a good job on voting rights (despite the bill headed for failure), and “yes” she will be his running mate in 2024

— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 19, 2022

"The fundamental question is, what's Mitch for?" Biden says, framing how he'll campaign against McConnell and congressional Republicans this year.

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) January 19, 2022

“I’m going to get out of this place more often,” Biden says at the White House https://t.co/qi2nGH2GxH

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 19, 2022

I'll take "there's so much more work I want to get done for you" over "I alone can fix it" in the Oval Office any day.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 20, 2022

That was nearly two hours of POTUS.
He answered each question cogently and to the best of his ability.
He called on more than 20 different reporters.
He never once attacked us.
He never once avoided a question.
He never once tried to belittle us.
He stayed on point.
-30-

— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) January 19, 2022

The media wants to paint Joe Biden as a failure. He won’t let that happen, @JRubinBlogger writes: https://t.co/Um8PWdtNwO

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) January 20, 2022

… Many of the questions from reporters verged on self-parody. Fox News’s Peter Doocy comically asked why Biden is pulling the country so far to the left. (Disclosure: I’m an MSNBC contributor.) The right-wing outfit Newsmax asked about his mental fitness for the job. It seemed everything was his fault, from Republicans’ refusal to support virtually any proposal to the fight between airlines and telecom companies over 5G.

Biden, for the most part, remained a “glass half full” president. “I’m not going to give up and accept things as they are now,” he said. “I call it ‘a job not yet finished.’” He stressed that the situation with covid-19 is improving. On school closures, he emphasized that 95 percent remain open.

He also seems to have heard complaints from Democrats, who have practically been begging him to focus more on his legislative successes. He started the news conference with a lengthy and passionate recitation of the low unemployment, widespread vaccination and infrastructure investment he achieved during his first year. “It’s been a year of challenges but also enormous progress,” he declared, conceding the nation should have done more testing earlier in the omicron surge. He also vowed to spend more time telling the country what he’s done and stressed the need to contrast his ambitions agenda with the stand-pat Republicans…

In a show of bravado, he asked if the reporters wanted to continue the presser for another hour or two. (He gave them 20 more minutes.) By then, he had demonstrated he had far more patience than was necessary considering the questions’ low quality.

In short, with the exception of the Russia questions, Biden turned in a strong performance that belies the right’s accusation that he is feeble. He was determinedly upbeat, ready to defend a productive first year and more pointed than he has been in dealing with Republican extremism. The press corps, by contrast, revealed once more that they put more emphasis on sounding tough, asking unanswerable questions and creating conflict than they do on exploring some of the gravest problems our country has ever faced. Our democracy deserves better.