Biden won’t hold press conference after MBS meeting in Saudi Arabia
President Biden won’t hold a press conference when he travels to Saudi Arabia and meets with killer Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the White House said Wednesday — days after Biden insisted in an op-ed that “fundamental freedoms are always on the agenda when I travel abroad.”
“We don’t have a press conference for Saudi [Arabia],” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to Israel for the first leg of Biden’s trip.
“But what we are trying to do is trying to make sure that you guys hear from the president in Saudi [Arabia], on the bilats [bilateral meetings], on the trip, and make sure that you guys hear directly from him.”
When asked how the lack of a news conference squares with Biden’s professed commitment to press freedom, Jean-Pierre reiterated that “we are going to make sure that you guys hear from him.”
“That is press access,” she added, declining to provide any specifics.
Biden’s two-day Saudi stopover amid high gas prices serves to legitimize the crown prince after US spy agencies determined that he ordered the 2018 hit that resulted in the murder of Virginia-based Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The president has denied he’s arriving hat-in-hand to beg for oil from the prince commonly known as MBS, whose crew of assassins allegedly used a bone saw to dismember Khashoggi’s body inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Biden insists he’s simply going to Jeddah for a larger gathering of regional countries.
Biden’s plan for limited press access while inside one of the world’s last absolute monarchies follows a series of issues with press access at home and during recent trips.
Biden has held far fewer news conferences and sat for fewer one-on-one interviews than his recent predecessors in the White House.
Biden went about four months this year without giving an on-the-record sit-down interview to a professional journalist. He spoke on Feb. 10 with Lester Holt of NBC for an interview that aired during the network’s Super Bowl coverage, but then waited until June 16 to do his next sitdown, with The Associated Press.
Despite doing so few interviews at home, the president sat down with Israel’s Channel 12 Tuesday to record an interview which aired nationwide Wednesday night, hours after he arrived in the country.
In the interview, Biden blasted far-left lawmakers who have accused Israel of being an “apartheid” state.
“I think they’re wrong. I think they’re making a mistake,” Biden said. “Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally. Israel is a friend.”
The White House, meanwhile, has ignored the White House Correspondents’ Association’s request for an explanation of a secretive pre-screening process for journalists let into Biden’s large indoor events at the White House.
Biden’s staff has for more than a year forced journalists to RSVP for indoor events and then hand-picked entrants, despite the fact that the relatively small White House briefing room returned to full capacity from COVID-19 restrictions in early June 2021.
Reporters believe that the non-transparent pre-screening process for Biden events at the White House is a way to shape the variety of questions posed to Biden and 73 journalists representing nearly two-thirds of briefing room seats signed a June 30 letter asking Jean-Pierre to end the practice and restore historical norms of allowing all reporters to attend events in the East Room and other large venues.
The press corps letter, signed by Correspondents’ Association President Steven Portnoy, called the current practice “antithetical to the concept of a free press.”
Most of Biden’s press conferences have taken place during his overseas travel, but even that access has diminished recently.
On his most recent foreign trip to last month’s NATO summit in Madrid, Biden frustrated reporters by rushing through a 27-minute presser — at which he called on just five journalists to ask questions.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, like Jean-Pierre, confirmed Wednesday that there would not be a Saudi press conference before adding that Biden will meet members of the royal family, including King Salman and MBS.
Journalists were almost certain to ask Biden about the Khashoggi case at a presser in Saudi Arabia — offering an opportunity for Biden to condemn the US resident’s murder, but also potentially scuttling his efforts to enlist Saudi help to lower US gas prices, which have sent Biden’s approval rating as low as 33% amid 9.1% annual inflation.
Whether to hold a meeting with the crown prince was hotly debated within the administration after Biden promised during his presidential campaign to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the murder of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi’s fiancée called on Biden to cancel the meeting last month, accusing him of “dishonoring yourself” and “putting oil over principles” by agreeing to the sit-down.
In an op-ed published by the Washington Post over the weekend, Biden defended the Saudi visit, writing: “As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure.
“We have to counter Russia’s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world.” the president went on. “To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them”.
While Biden is moving forward with the meeting, the White House appears to be making every effort possible to not look chummy with MBS – even avoiding a handshake.
When the president arrived in Tel Aviv Wednesday, he eschewed handshakes with most Israeli leaders in favor of fist bumps — ostensbily due to an increase in COVID cases in both the US and the Jewish state, even though he was spotted shaking hands with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and clasping hands with Holocaust survivors at the Yad Vashem memorial.
Jean-Pierre declined to confirm whether fist bumps would be the greeting practice used in Saudi Arabia as well.
“What we’re saying is we are taking precautions,” she told reporters.
“Is one of those precautions not shaking hands?” one reporter asked.
“What I’m saying is we’re going to try to minimize…contact as much as possible where we can and so that is what the focus is going to be on this trip,” the press secretary said.
When the press corps pointed out that the president took part in “very lengthy handshaking and selfie sessions” at the White House in recent days, Jean-Pierre continued to insist “extra precautions” would be taken overseas.
“While COVID is not gone, it’s still very much around,” she said, adding that additional measures to protect Biden are ��up to his doctor.”
