The questions posed to President Biden by two radio interviewers this week were provided to the hosts in advance by members of Mr. Biden’s team, one of the hosts said Saturday morning on CNN.
Andrea Lawful-Sanders, host of “The Source” on WURD in Philadelphia, said Biden officials provided her with a list of eight questions ahead of Wednesday’s interview.
“The questions were sent to me for approval, I approved them,” she told Victor Blackwell, host of CNN’s “First of All.” Asked if the White House had sent her the questions in advance, she said yes.
“I received several questions – eight of them,” she said. “And the four that were chosen were the ones I approved.”
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said it was actually campaign advisers, not White House officials, who sent out the list of questions. She said it was “not uncommon” for the campaign to share preferred topics, but added that campaign officials “do not condition interviews on the interviewer agreeing to those questions.”
“The hosts are always free to ask the questions that they feel will best enlighten their listeners,” she said. “In addition to these interviews, the president also participated in a press conference yesterday as well as an interview with ABC. Americans have had several opportunities to see him without intervention since the debate.”
Lawful-Sanders said later Saturday that she had “never felt pressure to ask certain questions” from the campaign.
“I chose the issues that were most important to the Black and Brown communities we serve in Philadelphia,” she said. “Those issues turned out to be exactly what Black and Brown communities wanted.”
Mr. Biden’s campaign had scheduled interviews with the hosts of two popular black radio shows, part of a broader effort to reassure Americans about his mental health after his disastrous performance in the Atlanta debate, which raised deep concerns among many Democrats.
In a subsequent interview with ABC News on Friday, the president appeared to point to his interactions with black radio hosts as part of the evidence that he could handle the rigors of campaigning, citing what he called “10 major events in a row” he has attended since the debate.
No one on the president’s reelection campaign or in the White House disclosed in advance that the questions had been passed to Black hosts, a practice widely dismissed by journalists as inappropriate, especially when covering a politician. And yet, despite knowing the questions in advance, Mr. Biden still stumbled over some of them.
In the interview with Ms. Lawful-Sanders, Mr. Biden faltered over his words, saying at one point that he was proud to have been “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president.”
During his appearance on “The Earl Ingram Show,” which airs on WAUK in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Mr. Biden responded to a question about the importance of voting with a halting and sometimes confusing answer.
“This is where we’ve always given Donald Trump the executive power to use a system, and it was never envisioned by our founders because of the people he appointed to the court,” he said, appearing to stutter several times, a condition he’s struggled with since he was a child. “It’s just presidential immunity. He can say I did this in my capacity as a leader, maybe it was wrong, but I did it. But it’s going to stand, because I … and this is the same guy who says he wants revenge.”
Mr. Blackwell, who was interviewing the two radio hosts on Saturday morning, appeared surprised by the response to the pre-approved questions.
He had asked Ms. Lawful-Sanders about her four questions because he said he noticed they were nearly identical to the four Mr. Ingram asked during his interview with Mr. Biden the same day.
Mr Ingram, who was on Mr Blackwell’s show with Ms Lawful-Sanders, did not dispute his description of how the questions were selected.
“I’m not asking this question to criticize either of you,” Mr. Blackwell told the two hosts. “It’s just that if the White House is now trying to demonstrate the president’s energy and vigor and acuity, I don’t see how they do that by sending the questions first, before the interviews, so the president knows what’s coming.”
