Biden Confuses MSNBC Interview for Press Conference

President Joe Biden mistakenly told members of the White House press corps that he would be holding a press conference later on Friday, confusing it with an interview he is set to have with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle.

“I’m doing a major press conference this afternoon, so I love you all but I’d like to ask you to leave so we can get down to business,” said Biden after speaking to reporters about April’s jobs report and forthcoming debt limit negotiations with Republicans.

Reporters continued to harangue Biden after he asked them to leave the room and Biden doubled down, responding to their myriad questions by declaring, “We’ll get a chance to talk about all of those things, I promise you.”

CNN’s John King observed that a presidential press conference came as “news to us” as well as the rest of the American press before promising to “get you more information on that as we get it.”

Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher cleared up the president’s comments by confirming with the White House that Biden “misspoke and was referring to his MSNBC interview.”

Biden has held the fewest number of press conferences during his first two years in office since Ronald Reagan.

“Despite his press secretary pledging that Mr. Biden would ‘bring transparency and truth back to the government,’ in his first two years, the president granted the fewest interviews since Mr. Reagan’s presidency: only 54. (Donald J. Trump gave 202 during the first two years of his presidency; Barack Obama gave 275),” noted the New York Times’s Michael Shear last month.

“More than any president in recent memory, Mr. Biden, 80, has taken steps to reduce opportunities for journalists to question him in forums where he can offer unscripted answers and they can follow up. The result, critics say, is a president who has fewer moments of public accountability for his comments, decisions and actions,” added Shear.

Watch above via CNN.

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