WASHINGTON — Reporters who were supposed to observe President Biden’s heavily promoted trilateral meeting with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines missed his remarks Thursday when press handlers left them standing downstairs in a hallway as the commander-in-chief spoke.
The rare logistical snafu prevented journalists from witnessing the 81-year-old president’s opening remarks to Philippine President Bongbong Marcos and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the White House East Room.
The day’s print pool reporter, Michael Shear of the New York Times, relayed the unexpected dilemma in an emailed update to colleagues who were anticipating quotes from the summit of major US allies.
In an alert titled “Pool missed the pool spray,” Shear relayed the “bad news: The White House held most of the press in the lower hallway in the East Wing even as the pool spray at the Trilateral meeting got under way.”
Shear wrote to fellow members of the press corps that “[a]s a result your pooler and most of the American and Philippine reporters were not taken into the East Room until after [Biden] had concluded speaking.”
Marcos “was concluding his remarks as the press was finally allowed into the room,” Shear wrote.
Reporters were able to hear Kishida declare that “today’s meeting will make history,” with Biden concurring that “when we stand as one we are able to force a better peace for all.”
Journalists who had just arrived were then removed from the room as Biden ignored a shouted question about his message to China, which the three-country group is working to counter.
It’s unclear why exactly most of the press missed the main feature, though junior staff in the press office recently changed over, resulting in a less-experienced crop of new press “wranglers,” who generally are given significant authority over movements, despite usually being in their early 20s.
A pool videographer was in the room, resulting in footage of the full opening remarks ultimately being posted by C-SPAN.
Biden, whose public remarks often are undermined by gaffes, hosted until late Wednesday a state dinner in Kishida’s honor, including an after-10 p.m. concert with singer Paul Simon in the State Dining Room immediately below his bedroom.
The president answered a relatively large number of questions Wednesday — saying he’s “considering” Australia’s request to end the US prosecution of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, before stumbling at a press conference by saying he was living in the “20th century,” meaning the 1900s.
Biden’s minders previously have taken heat from the White House Correspondents’ Association for poor staging and in some cases aggressively pre-screening reporters allowed near the president.
Biden in February 2023 left behind most of the traveling press pool for a surprise trip to Ukraine — bringing with him only one preselected US reporter and photographer, despite informing the Russian military, which posed the greatest security threat, of Biden’s travel plans ahead of time.
In another well-remembered incident, White House press staff in 2021 abruptly disinvited US reporters from a summit in Brussels between Biden and Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan — forcing reporters, who were left standing outside the room, to rely on Erdogan’s press office for information.
