Pennsylvania talk show host Andrea Lawful-Sanders is facing unemployment after WURD Radio CEO Sara M. Lomax discovered she had used a pre-approved list of questions in a recent post-debate interview with President Joe Biden.
Sanders breached the station’s standards of journalistic independence and has “mutually agreed” to part ways with the station, effective immediately, according to Lomax. Sanders used questions from the Biden campaign, who also coordinated the interview. An anonymous source mentioned that interview hosts are “free to ask” any questions they choose, but the campaign has decided to cease offering pre-screened suggestions for interviewers.
But Sanders is not alone. Team Biden has been running interference on several news media platforms as they attempt to downplay the significance of the President’s disastrous debate last week. Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram of CivicMedia proudly admitted he had used four out of five of Team Biden’s suggested questions to conduct his interview with the President, proudly telling CNN that he was “grateful for the opportunity” to interview Biden.
Ingram, whose show airs across 20 stations in Wisconsin, told The Associated Press that he was given the exact questions to ask without any opportunity for discussion or modification.
According to Sanders, the White House gave her eight questions for approval. She noted that while the White House had provided the questions, a Biden spokesperson admitted the questions were from the campaign.
Even with such careful parameters, Biden rambled bizarrely during his interview with Sanders, saying that he was the “first president to be elected in Delaware” when he was a kid and that he was “proud to be the first Black woman to serve with a Black president.”
His segment on The Earl Ingram Show didn’t go much better. He stumbled through a question about the importance of voting, sputtering through an incoherent answer about Trump, executives, founding fathers, and the SCOTUS in one rambling sentence.
During an appearance on Victor Blackwell’s CNN spot, First of All, Sanders admitted the Biden campaign provided her questions, and Blackwell feigned shock and surprise. Blackwell had noted that the questions Sanders asked were nearly identical to those Ingram had asked Biden on the same day.
Blackwell explained to Sanders that he wasn’t criticizing the hosts. He questioned how the White House could prove the president’s energy and sharpness if they sent the questions in advance, allowing the president to know what would be asked before the interviews.
But, similar to Biden’s debate performance, both interviews were a dismal failure for the Democratic nominee.
A Biden spokesperson did not deny providing questions to the radio host after Lawful-Sanders’s comments on CNN. The spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, said it’s common for interviewees to share preferred topics. Hill said the questions were about current news, including the president’s debate performance and contributions to Black Americans. She also mentioned that interviews aren’t conditional on accepting these questions, and hosts can always ask what they think will best inform their listeners.
The interviews were intended to restore confidence in Biden’s ability to govern and campaign effectively over the next four years. However, the disclosure raised doubts about his capability to handle spontaneous, unscripted situations, especially after his poor debate performance.
But the campaign points to an unscripted interview with Milwaukee radio host Sherwin Hughes in June. According to Hughes, he did not receive a pre-approved list of questions ahead of that interview. Biden also delivered a press conference and another interview with ABC, both opportunities to see an “unscripted Biden,” a campaign spokesperson said.
Throughout his presidency, Biden has used cheat sheets and teleprompters. He has been seen at press conferences using notecards that list which reporters to call on and what questions they’ll ask.
If keeping Biden in the public eye was intended to calm the stormy post-debate sea for the floundering candidate, Team Biden failed miserably. The President has proven that he cannot perform off-script and can no longer reliably provide coherent replies even if he is given the answers in advance.
Of course, Biden spokesperson Lauren Hitt was quick to try and flip the tables, noting that challenger Donald Trump had refused to grant an interview to a reporter who wouldn’t agree to “conditions on his questions.”
Biden told Ingram, “I didn’t have a good debate. That’s 90 minutes on stage. Look at what I’ve done in 3.5 years.”
The 3.5 years of the Biden presidency have been marked by a tanked economy, painful inflation, uncontrolled chaos at the border, racial and religious division, weaponized governmental agencies, and several constitutionally questionable decisions like student loan relief and censorship. Team Biden would be better off focusing on Biden’s debate “head cold” than allowing him to discuss his “successful” presidency.
