OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Joe Biden held a press conference on Monday and not only did he struggle mightily to deliver coherent sentences, but he was also fielding softball questions from a list of “pre-approved” reporters.
Biden spoke about the spread of the omicron Covid-19 variant and possible lockdowns in the country.
Soon after his prepared remarks, Biden said: “Questions?”
“Should Americans be worried, sir?” a reporter tried to ask.
“Let me call on Nancy, Bloomberg,” he said, leading many to believe he was using a list of pre-approved reporters that he was allowed to call on.
“Thank you so much, President Biden,” the reporter replied, gratefully.
After taking a question from the Associated Press’ Zeke Miller, Biden fumbled through his notes and struggled to deliver a coherent response.
“Well, I’m — look,” Biden said and paused. “When, uh, when I took office I, uh, decided that it was a fairly basic, simple proposition. And that is, I got elected to solve problems.”
“And the most urgent problems facing the American people I stated from the outset,” he continued, “was COVID-19 and the economic dislocation for millions and millions of Americans.”
WATCH:
Biden also dodged when asked whether or not he would be calling on local governments to put mask mandates back in place.
REPORTER: “The U.K., Europe and a growing number of countries have confirmed cases of Omicron. Are you considering additional travel restrictions on countries where the variant has been detected? And just separately, you urged Americans to wear masks in indoor public spaces but many states and cities, including Washington, D.C. have lifted mask mandates. Are you calling on state and local officials to reinstate mask mandates?”
Biden: “With regard to the last question the answer is, I — I encourage everyone to wear a mask when they are indoors in a crowded circumstance like we are right now — and unless you’re eating or speaking in a microphone, and — secondly the — degree of the spread impacts on whether or not there’s a need for any travel restriction, but that’s not — I don’t anticipate that at this point and we’ll see. We’ll see if that works.”
WATCH:
When discussing the travel ban that he imposed, Biden made clear he supports lockdowns.
“When I was elected, I said I would always be honest with you, so today I want to take a few moments to talk about the new Covid variant first identified last week in southern Africa,” Biden said.
“It’s called the Omicron. It is — and to their credit, the scientific community in South Africa quickly notified the world of the emergence of this new variant. This kind of transparency is to be encouraged and applauded because it increases our ability to respond quickly to any new threats,” he added.
“And that’s exactly what we did. The very day the World Health Organization identified the new variant I took immediate steps to restrict travel from countries in southern Africa, but while we had that travel restriction can slow the speed of Omicron, it cannot prevent it, but here’s what it does it. It gives us time, gives us time to take more actions, to move quicker, to make sure people understand you have to get your vaccine. You have to get the shot. You have to get the booster,” he concluded.
