Approved Questions To Ask Biden Given To Radio Hosts By White House Before Interviews, Says Talk Host
In radio interviews after the first presidential debate and before his sit-down with ABC News, President Joe Biden was asked questions from a pre-approved and pre-written set of scripted questions provided by the White House, one of the hosts told CNN on Saturday.
WURD radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders and Civic Media host Earl Ingram spoke with anchor Victor Blackwell on Saturday’s First of All on CNN about their respective interviews of President Biden, which both took place after the disastrous debate and prior to Friday’s sit-down interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos that aired Friday.
An excerpt of Lawful-Sanders’s interview went somewhat viral on the right over the Fourth of July holiday for what some described as a “verbal slipup” in comments about Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Saturday, Blackwell first noted to Lawful-Sanders that both she and Ingram asked the same basic questions and asked whether “those questions given to you by the White House, or did you have or the campaign, or did you have to submit questions ahead of this interview?”
“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved of them,” Lawful-Sanders answered.
“Okay. So the White House sent the questions to you ahead of the interview?” Blackwell prompted.
“Yes,” Lawful-Sanders confirmed again. She then made clear that a set of pre-written questions were given to her by the White House, and she chose from among those, sending them back to the White House so they would know which of the pre-written questions he would be asked during the interview.
The CNN anchor then pointed out he was not criticizing the radio hosts, but instead he was asking because, “if the White House is trying now to prove the vim, vigor, acuity of the president, I don’t know how they do that by sending questions first before the interview so that the president knows what’s coming.”
A Biden spokesperson claimed to The New York Times that it’s “not uncommon” to provide “preferred topics” to interviewers, but that they “do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions.”
The full interview is available from WURD here.
BLACKWELL: Andrea, let me ask you here about your interviews, and something – I listened to both of them. And there’s something that’s similar here. You each were, you asked for questions, and maybe that’s what you were allowed to ask by, the campaign or the White House. But they were essentially the same questions, both interviews about accomplishments, progress in your respective state, what’s at stake in the election, what do you has to say about this debate performance, and what he would say to voters who think their vote doesn’t matter or might sit this election out. Were those questions given to you by the White House, or did you have or the campaign, or did you have to submit questions ahead of this interview?
LAWFUL-SANDERS: The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved of them.
BLACKWELL: Okay. So the White House sent the questions to you ahead of the interview.
LAWFUL-SANDERS: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Okay.
LAWFUL-SANDERS: I got several questions. Eight of them. And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.
BLACKWELL: Okay. And the reason I ask is not a criticism of either of you. It’s just that if the White House is trying now to prove the, the vim, vigor, acuity of the president, I don’t know how they do that by sending questions first before the interview so that the president knows what’s coming.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
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