Karoline Leavitt just dropped some brutal numbers on **Joe Biden’s** media avoidance, and we’ve got to say — the contrast is stark. We learned the White House Press Secretary presented a compelling statistic about how accessible President **Donald Trump** has been just a year into taking office and how little the public ever saw former President **Joe Biden** during his term.
While speaking at a media event hosted by Axios co-founder **Mike Allen**, Leavitt highlighted the contrast between President **Donald Trump’s** accessibility and that of **Biden**. She also pointed out that many in the media overlooked **Biden’s** avoidance of the media and his largely “hiding” behavior during his four years in office.
When **Allen** asked Leavitt about concerns over access restrictions, she didn’t hold back. “I don’t view them as restrictions,” Leavitt said. “We view them as opening access to more outlets, more voices, more news, journalists and outlets. We shouldn’t have a few outlets who have a monopoly over the briefing room or over that 13 person press pool that covers the president.”
Leavitt doubled down on the diversity argument: “There are thousands of outlets who have White House press credentials. There are hundreds that actually show up every day and cover the beat. Why should a single outlet have the privilege of being in that 13 person press pool every single day?”
When pressed about a White House Correspondents Association statement claiming the government shouldn’t control independent media, Leavitt fired back: “I think that a small group of journalists who comprise the board of the White House Correspondents Association should not dictate who gets to go into the Oval Office and who gets to ride on Air Force One.”
Here’s where it gets spicy: “And if we were trying, by the way, to create positive press for the president, if we were trying to make it easier on him or on the administration, we wouldn’t allow some of these fake news leftist outlets in,” Leavitt said. “But we continue to do that. No one has been restricted.”
The receipts? In July, Axios published a story titled “Biden’s media evasion,” revealing that the Democrat held fewer press conferences and media interviews than any of the last seven presidents at the same point in their term. At that time, **Biden** had conducted only 164, compared to **Trump’s** 468. The next lowest were **George W. Bush** with 248 and **Ronald Reagan** with 262.
So basically, **Biden** talked to the press less than anyone in recent history — and now **Leavitt** is making sure everyone knows it.
