WASHINGTON — He reflected on his reputation as a “nice guy”
and a “decent man.” He talked about how his great-grandfather set sail on the
Irish Sea to make the difficult journey to America. He observed that “politics
is the art of the possible.”
اضافة اعلان
In his first formal news conference since taking office,
President Joe Biden offered an early glimpse of the man who inhabits the Oval
Office and how he is approaching the presidency so far. Unlike President Donald
Trump’s hot-tempered blowups or President Barack Obama’s extended answers of
professorial cool, Biden was the sober political veteran comfortable with
thinking out loud, talking personally and conversationally, and showing
occasional impatience before a roomful of reporters.
When he received a question he did not like, such as whether
he expected to run in 2024 against Trump, he shrugged it off with, “I don’t
know where you guys come from, man.” But Biden did say he expected to run
again, with Vice President Kamala Harris at his side.
After nearly four decades in politics, including eight years
as vice president, he showed himself as a student of the office. “It’s a matter
of timing,” he said when asked about his legislative priorities. “As you’ve all
observed, the successful presidents better than me have been successful in
large part because they know how to time what they’re doing. Order it. Decide
priorities. What needs to be done.” To that end, he cited his $3 trillion
infrastructure bill as “the next major initiative.”
And when asked why he did not push to abolish the Senate
filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass most legislation and which Biden
called a relic of the Jim Crow era, he said simply that “successful electoral
politics is the art of the possible” — and that he wanted to see whether he
could change the filibuster first.
The president engaged on questions about his
administration’s attempt to ramp up capacity to temporarily care for the
thousands of migrant children who are arriving at the southwestern border
without legal guardians. He also took aim at the zero-tolerance policies
enacted by Trump, saying his administration is trying “to put in place what was
dismantled.”
“I like to think it’s because I’m a nice guy,” Biden said.
“But it’s not. It’s because of what’s happened.”
At times, he was equal parts off the cuff — “I guess I
should be flattered,” he responded when pressed on his “moral” approach to
detaining families at the border — and exasperated.
“That’s a serious question, right? Is it acceptable to me?
Come on,” Biden said when asked if the state of Customs and Border Protection
facilities in Texas, where children are being temporarily housed, was
acceptable to him.
Other times he was solicitous of reporters. “Am I giving you
too long an answer?” he asked Yamiche Alcindor of PBS NewsHour. “If you don’t
want the details — I don’t know how much detail you want about immigration.
Maybe I’ll stop there.”
As he took questions for over an hour, the president also
did little to fuel the narrative being crafted by conservative news media that
he is lacking in his mental facilities. He appeared well prepared and sure of
his facts, although he did refer to the “North China Sea,” which does not
exist.
During the news conference, a limited number of journalists
were allowed in the room. Those who attended wore masks and sat 6 feet apart to
comply with social-distancing rules. Biden called on reporters by their first
names, from a list drawn up beforehand by his staff.
In that sense, it was another return to normalcy, after four
years of Trump’s free-for-all, fact-challenged news conferences. At one, Trump
mocked a reporter for wearing what he called “the largest mask I think I’ve
ever seen” and at another claimed that injecting disinfectants into the human
body could help combat the coronavirus. Reporters shouted to be heard, and
Trump appeared to relish the chaos.
Biden’s performance, in contrast, was relatively sedate.
“It’s a really big relief after four years, when every
presidential news conference was a cataclysmic event,” said Lis Smith, a
Democratic strategist. She said Biden had stayed on message and “has woven in
empathy into everything he does.”
“Biden did what he needed to do,” said David Axelrod, a
former top adviser to Obama. “He drove the progress on the virus at the top,
parried difficult questions on the border and filibuster, and generally
refrained from making unwelcome news.”
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