Looking back on her time as White House press secretary, Fox News anchor Dana Perino said she feels affronted by the “terrible” way President Joe Biden’s inner circle limits the process by which he communicates with the media, and by extension, the U.S. electorate.
Biden answered a few questions during a brief meeting with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday morning,
As he shuffled away to Marine One, Perino called out the president’s public relations team for bad acoustics and optics.
“That’s terrible to me. That’s terrible! If they at the White House communications office want him to make news and want him to take questions, do it in a way where the American people, our allies and our adversaries can hear him clearly,” Dana Perino said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
Usually rather measured during her on-air appearances, she went on to say, “I find it professionally insulting as someone who used to work there that they think that this is good enough for the president to just, to take a question like that when you can’t actually hear him above the rotating blades.”
Perino, the White House press secretary to George W. Bush, also remarked that following her recommendation for more access would cut down on “all the questions as to [Biden’s] mental capacity so that you could actually hear him, if he’s being coherent.”
Fox News’s @DanaPerino slams the Biden White House as Biden shuffles away towards Marine One:
“I find it professionally insulting as someone who used to work there that they think that this is good enough.” pic.twitter.com/2d1LPDU419
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 30, 2024
During his barely audible media gaggle, the president was asked whether he had done “everything you can do with executive authority” to address the crisis at the nation’s southern border.
“I’ve done all I can do,” Biden responded. “Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office. Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the people — give me the people, the judges. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.”
Joe Biden falsely claims he’s “done all I can do” on the border.
That’s a lie. Joe Biden took 94 executive actions in his first 100 days creating the crisis. Meanwhile, he is blocking the House-passed Secure the Border Act. pic.twitter.com/90WxuOBuLy
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 30, 2024
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others have described the wave of illegal immigrants entering the country as an invasion.
Upon being ushered into office, Biden reversed former President Donald Trump’s effective border security measures.
As many political observers, including America First Legal founder Stephen Miller, have noted, the president has the power to reinstate all of those policies by executive order.
“Trump ended all catch [and] release, implemented universal detention thru removal. Biden ended all Trump policies, mandated mass release [and] resettlement. Biden could restore Trump policies at any time. He won’t [because] he’s leading the invasion,” Miller wrote on X.
How Biden erased the border, short version:
Trump ended all catch+release, implemented universal detention thru removal.
Biden ended all Trump policies, mandated mass release+resettlement.
Biden could restore Trump policies at any time. He won’t b/c he’s leading the invasion.
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 29, 2024
In another post, Miller suggested the White House press office explain the thinking behind 18 Biden decisions related to the border, including ending the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Question for @WhiteHouse press office—what was Biden hoping to achieve when he did each of the following:
—Terminating Remain-in-Mexico
—Canceling Safe 3rds
—Ordering border-wide catch-and-release
—Freeing adult single crossers for first time in US history
—Releasing illegals…— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 30, 2024
While in office, in addition to his frequent news conferences, Trump regularly held somewhat impromptu, headline-making Q&A sessions with reporters on his way to Marine One when he headed out of town.
Is Biden fit for office?
The big problem is that Biden, who often has trouble walking, speaking or even knowing where he happens to be, is seldom made available to reporters, so when they have a window of opportunity they take it, even if the setting is less-than-conducive to serious discussion.
In the meantime, the national security, law enforcement and humanitarian crisis at the border has reached a point that the U.S. House is moving ahead with an effort to impeach the robotic Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security.
Whether that initiative will have any practical bearing on the Biden administration’s border agenda remains to be seen.
Against this backdrop, grassroots Republicans have decried the bipartisan immigration-related legislation pending in the U.S. Senate as just more papered-over amnesty.
