President Donald Trump took a swipe at his presumed opponent in the upcoming 2020 election on Saturday, saying that it appeared “Sleepy Joe” Biden never takes inquiries from reporters.
“Very strange. Sleepy Joe never takes questions. Also, his reporters have zero drive. Why can’t my reporters behave like that? Something is going on!” he tweeted.
The tweet was accompanied by a video showing Kamala Harris and Biden sitting in front of reporters before they are ushered out of the press room.
Commenters noted that it appeared that the reporters were passive as they were pushed out the door before asking any of the tougher queries that reporters have been lobbing at Trump in recent days. Others blasted Trump for his own treatment of reporters.
“Joe Biden has answered plenty of questions. Nothing is ‘going on.’ Everything isn’t a giant conspiracy,” wrote one person. “Meanwhile you only answer the questions you want to, and most of the time your answers are blatant lies. For example, you refused to condemn QAnon.”
“What’s not strange is you can’t answer simple questions from journalists. You have to be disrespectful and demeaning towards them,” added pundit David Weissman.
Trump frequently and famously targets the press, calling news outlets “fake” and the enemy of the American people. While he often targets liberal-leaning news outlets, he has also attacked conservative Fox News in the past, particularly when the channel airs negative coverage of his administration.
Though he didn’t call out the incident specifically, Trump’s tweet comes just two days after a White House reporter for the HuffPost asked Trump at a press briefing if he regretted all the “lying” he has done to Americans over the past three-and-a-half years that he has been in office. The query was made as the conference was winding down, and the president opted not to respond to it, as The Guardian reported at the time. Instead, he asked to clarify “all the what” done by “who” before quickly moving onto the next topic. S.V. Date said that he had been waiting to ask Trump the query for months but hadn’t been called on in any recent pools, so he hadn’t had the opportunity.
The Washington Post reported last month that Trump has made more than 20,o00 false or misleading claims since he took office.
Trump also recently dodged an inquiry from reporters in a press conference over whether or not he supports a QAnon conspiracy about a child abuse ring within the Democratic party.
