President Donald Trump has already become one of the āmost accessibleā presidents in modern history after former President Joe Biden had been largely hidden from the press, according to numbers calculated by Politico.
Trump has participated in media appearances on 111 of the 138 days he has been back in office, giving him an 80% media hit rate, according to Politico Playbook. The presidentās easy accessibility is a stark contrast from Biden, who held the fewest number of press conferences in modern times and had been hidden from the press by his aides to hide his cognitive decline, according to āOriginal Sin,ā a book written by CNNās Jake Tapper and Axiosā Alex Thompson.
Trump has noticeably taken a long list of questions from reporters at a variety of different outlets. In February, he responded to 1,009 questions from journalists in his first month in office, which was seven times the amount of questions answered by Biden in that same period.
The president has held 5 press conferences in the past four months of his second term, while Biden held 4 in his final full year in office, according to the American Presidency Project. Bidenās average number of press conferences add up to 9.25 per year, while most presidents have held over 20 per year.
During the few times Biden held a press conference, his aides handed him notecards that instructed him on which reporters to call on and how to behave during the event.
The former presidentās staff often escorted him out of public events without him taking questions from reporters. His aides, cabinet secretaries and Democrat lawmakers all witnessed Bidenās physical and mental decline, but did not address it publicly in order to help him win reelection in the 2024 election, according to Tapper and Thompsonās book.
The public often raised questions about Bidenās health when he did make public appearances, including a moment from September 2022 when he searched for a deceased congresswoman. Footage also showed him fall on multiple occasions and appear confused about where he was.
Biden reportedly did not recognize his longtime acquaintance, Hollywood actor George Clooney, at a political fundraiser in June 2024, which reportedly left Clooney āshaken to the coreā by what he saw.
The former presidentās personal physician, Dr. Kevin OāConnor, privately warned Bidenās team that a āwheelchair might be necessaryā if he suffered from one more fall in 2023 or 2024, Axios first reported. He had expressed concern about the toll the presidency was taking on the 81-year-old presidentās health and often pushed his staff to add more rest time to his schedule.
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