First lady Jill Biden blasted the White House staffers after they failed to cut off US President Joe Biden’s second solo press conference last January.
According to the report, former press secretary Jen Psaki signaled to the president to wrap it up during the conference but Biden still continued to take questions from the press.
The incident occurred during the president’s press conference on January 19 when he was grilled by the media about the way he handled the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine and the supply chain crisis that was causing a shortage of goods across the United States.
Two hours after the incident happened, Jill Biden appeared and joined the meeting of top White House officials who were rehashing the president’s performance and lashed out at the staffers, blaming them for not stopping Biden from taking questions from the media.
“She pointedly asked the group, which included the president, why nobody stepped in to stop it, according to a person who was in the room. Where was the person, she demanded, who was supposed to end the news conference?” The Times said in its exclusive report.
The media outlet also reported how the first lady has “become a favored surrogate for the president ahead of the midterm elections, noted that she has been protective of her husband and even took part in hiring White House staffers and press aides, including vetting Psaki alongside the president.”
During the January press conference, Psaki stood up in an apparent attempt to bring the proceedings to a close while Biden was still answering the questions from a pre-arranged list of reporters for roughly an hour.
However, 20 minutes had passed, and Biden still continued taking questions, prompting Psaki to walk to a door about 50 feet away from where she was sitting, in another apparent attempt to end the questioning.
The news conference became controversial after President Biden suggested multiple times that “Russia would only face a muted US response for a minor incursion into Ukraine and predicting that Vladimir Putin would be able to prevail over time over Kyiv,” NYPost revealed.
