President Joe Biden became visibly agitated during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Italy this week. According to NBC News, a reporter from Bloomberg News, Josh Wingrove, posed a question regarding a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. However, the president’s response was sharp and abrupt, indicating his displeasure with the inquiry.
“I wish you guys would play by the rules a little bit,” the Biden remarked to the reporter.
“I’m here to talk about a critical situation in Ukraine,” he said. “You’re asking me another subject.”
“I’ll be happy to answer it in detail later. But the bottom line is that we’ve made an agreement — I’ve laid out an — an approach that has been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, by the G7, by the Israelis, and the — the biggest hang-up so far is Hamas refusing to sign on even though they have submitted something similar,” the president said.
“Whether it ha- — now to — comes to fruition remains to be seen. We’re going to continue to push. I don’t have a final answer for you,” he said.
Kelly O’Donnell, a reporter from NBC News and the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, reprimanded the president for his statement.
“The White House Correspondents’ Association believes it is in the public interest to make clear that at a presidential press conference, at home or abroad, there are no preconditions regarding question topics,” she said.
“While the White House does determine the number of reporters the president will recognize, it is up to professional journalists to decide what to ask. Any leader may prefer that reporters ask only one question or ask only about a topic that is of most interest to the president or another world leader, but a free press functions independently,” the reporter said.
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