Milwaukee radio station says it agreed to edit interview with Joe Biden
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The interviews were scheduled in an effort to reassure voters of the president’s abilities. But the revelation that both hosts were given questions ahead of time has raised doubts about the confidence the president has in navigating unscripted conversations.
Ingram, who did not mention the pre-written questions during an earlier interview with the Journal Sentinel, told ABC News he was given five questions and asked four of them.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted to ask,” he told ABC News last weekend.
Lauren Hitt, spokeswoman for Biden, said it’s not uncommon for interview subjects “to share topics they would prefer.”
“These questions were relevant to the news of the day — the president was asked about this debate performance as well as what he’d delivered for Black Americans,” Hitt said. “We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners.”
“In addition to these interviews, the President also participated in a press gaggle (Friday) as well as an interview with ABC. Americans have had several opportunities to see him unscripted since the debate,” she added.
The campaign also noted host Geno Jones, who interviewed Biden in June, and actor and comedian D.L. Hughley, who interviewed Biden in May, said they were not given questions in advance of conversations with the president.
Ingram told ABC News he didn’t have concerns with the practice.
“To think that I was gonna get an opportunity to ask any question to the President of the United States, I think, is a bit more than anybody should expect,” he said. “Certainly the fact that they gave me this opportunity … meant a lot to me.”
In the pre-recorded interview with Ingram that aired Thursday, Biden said he “had a bad night” during the debate.
“And the fact of the matter is that I screwed up. I made a mistake,” he told Ingram.
Biden, during the 18-minute interview that aired on WAUK-AM, said he was “proud to be running for reelection as a president that has made his promises — and I’ve kept them.”
The 81-year-old president visited Madison last Friday, defiantly declaring he would stay in the race and pledging to defeat Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He closed his rally with Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” just before taping a primetime interview with ABC that was organized to help overturn public fears of a lagging mental acuity.
Ahead of the rally, a group of local reporters were assembled to accompany the president’s motorcade from the Dane County Regional Airport to the rally event and elsewhere. But the campaign scuttled the plan while reporters were waiting at the airport without explanation. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter was unable to cover Friday’s rally because of the situation.
Trump recently canceled an interview with a news outlet after learning what questions the reporter planned to ask. He also previously agreed to an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel during which he did not receive topics or questions ahead of time.
Jessie Opoien can be reached at [email protected]. Molly Beck can be reached at [email protected].
