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Biden Notecard Raises Question of Collusion Between White House, Media

The White House and a newspaper are denying there was collusion this week when a reporter asked U.S. President Joe Biden a question very similar to what was written on a card Biden held while facing journalists in the White House Rose Garden.

“We do not have specific questions in advance. That’s not something that we do,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded when asked at Thursday’s briefing about the president’s pocket card, titled “Question # 1,” which contained the name and photograph of Los Angeles Times correspondent Courtney Subramanian, along with a question: “How are YOU squaring YOUR domestic priorities — like reshoring semiconductors manufacturing — with alliance-based foreign policy?”

Close-up images of the notecard were captured by multiple news photographers in the Rose Garden.

Biden, alongside visiting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday, called first on Subramanian, who asked: “Your top economic priority has been to build up U.S. domestic manufacturing in competition with China, but your rules against expanding chip manufacturing in China is hurting South Korean companies that rely heavily on Beijing. Are you damaging a key ally in the competition with China to help your domestic politics ahead of the election?”

Biden responded with an extensive and nuanced comment on the topic.

‘It seems like there’s collusion’

Jean-Pierre explained the following day that Subramanian was one of two correspondents called on by Biden because California has the largest Korean American community of any U.S. state.

“We are mindful on who we pick and who we want to communicate out to,” added Jean-Pierre.

Her response did not satisfy the briefing room audience. Among those denied an opportunity to ask a follow-up question about the matter was Jon Decker, White House correspondent for Gray Television, whose career spans 16 White House press secretaries and five presidencies.

“I was just simply trying to ask her is it her contention that the question that everyone could read on that so-called cheat sheet was not similar to the question that was asked at the White House press conference? And it was similar,” he told VOA.

“I’ve never seen an instance where the president is being given a question from a reporter that covers the president at a pre-announced White House press conference,” Decker added. “It really reflects poorly on the White House press corps, and it reflects poorly on the White House for allowing that to happen. It seems like there’s collusion, and for the public that has distrust, skepticism and even disdain for the media, it doesn’t put us in a good light.”

The White House continued to rebuff inquiries following Thursday’s briefing.

“Karine addressed this very clearly and in-depth in the briefing room today,” responded principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton to VOA, which attempted to pursue the topic of presubmitted questions to the president.

Subramanian has not commented. Her newspaper issued a statement to inquiries from media organizations.

“Our reporter did not submit any questions in advance of the Q&A with President Biden,” said Hillary Manning, vice president of communications for the Los Angeles Times. Subramanian “is in regular contact with the White House press office seeking information for her reporting. You would have to ask the White House who prepared the document for the president and why they included that question.”

April Ryan, Washington bureau chief of The Grio, who refers to herself as the longest-serving black female journalist covering the White House, said while it is not unusual for presidents to have a card listing journalists who could potentially be called on, she had never seen one that contained a picture of the reporter and the “actual question itself.”

Ryan told VOA it is routine prior to news conferences for the president and his principals, who help him with messaging, to discuss potential questions but what occurred Wednesday seemed unprecedented.

Kayleigh McEnany, a press secretary in the previous administration of Donald Trump, on the set of Fox News on Thursday, said “it’s very unordinary to have the question as specific as semiconductors as they pertain to alliances written out and scripted for the president.”

A correspondent, who asked not to be named and covers the White House for a foreign broadcaster, told VOA: “It raises questions of not only President Biden needing a heads up to come up with answers but also transparency of how the White House chooses who gets to ask questions. It is frustrating for reporters who aren’t in their inner circle.”

Reagan, Bush, had a seating chart

The president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Tamara Keith of National Public Radio, declined to comment on the issue. The association noted it has no involvement on who gets called on by presidents at news conferences.

During the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the presidents had a seating chart to know where to find a sympathetic questioner, said Charles Bierbauer, who was CNN’s senior White House correspondent from 1983-93.

“The guessing game between the press and the White House has long been to figure out who might ask what of the president at news conferences,” he told VOA.

“I recall presidential aides gleefully telling us when they had anticipated every question. My pattern was to be prepared for the questions I knew I had to ask but always have kind of an offbeat question, too,” recalled Bierbauer, distinguished professor and dean emeritus at the College of Information and Communications at the University of South Carolina.

It is not uncommon for the White House to let a reporter know he or she will be called on during a news conference and to query the reporter about what they might ask, according to former CBS Radio White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who covered eight presidents from Gerald Ford to Trump.

“As a reporter, I always prepared questions on a number of subjects,” Knoller told VOA. “More often than not the White House knows what subjects a reporter is interested in based on questions at briefings and inquiries made previously to the press office. I can’t believe a reporter worth his or her salt would give a detailed question in advance.”
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Record Settlement by Fox News in Defamation Lawsuit

This month a widely watched lawsuit over how U.S. cable network Fox News covered former President Donald Trump’s false allegations of election rigging in 2020 resulted in the network paying a near-record $787.5 million settlement to avoid a trial. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports.
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Yoon to Congress: South Korea Will Stand With US to Support Freedom

In a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol told American lawmakers the 70-year-old alliance between their countries was stronger than ever. Earlier this week, Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to strengthen nuclear cooperation in the face of increasing regional tensions. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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Appeals Court Rejects Trump Effort to Block Pence Testimony

A federal appeals court on Wednesday night moved former Vice President Mike Pence closer to appearing before a grand jury investigating efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, rejecting a bid by former President Donald Trump’s lawyers to block the testimony.

It was not immediately clear what day Pence might appear before the grand jury, which for months has been investigating the events preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election outcome. But Pence’s testimony, coming as he moves closer to entering the 2024 presidential race, would be a milestone moment in the investigation and would likely give prosecutors a key first-person account as they press forward with their inquiry.

The order from the three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was sealed and none of the parties are mentioned by name in online court records. But the appeal in the sealed case was filed just days after a lower-court judge had directed Pence to testify over objections from the Trump team.

A lawyer for Pence and a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately return emails seeking comment, and a spokesman for the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation declined to comment.

Pence was subpoenaed to testify earlier this year, but lawyers for Trump objected, citing executive privilege concerns. A judge in March refused to block Trump’s appearance, though he did side with the former vice president’s constitutional claims that he could not be forced to answer questions about anything related to his role as presiding over the Senate’s certification of votes on Jan. 6.

“We’ll obey the law, we’ll tell the truth,” Pence said in an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation that aired Sunday. “And the story that I’ve been telling the American people all across the country, the story that I wrote in the pages of my memoir, that’ll be the story I tell in that setting.”

Pence has spoken extensively about Trump’s pressure campaign urging him to reject Biden’s victory in the days leading up to Jan. 6, including in his book So Help Me God.

Pence, as vice president, had a ceremonial role overseeing Congress’ counting of the Electoral College vote, but did not have the power to affect the results, despite Trump’s contention otherwise.

Pence has said that Trump endangered his family and everyone else who was at the Capitol that day and history will hold him “accountable.”

“For four years, we had a close working relationship. It did not end well,” Pence wrote, summing up their time in the White House.

The special counsel leading the investigation, Jack Smith, has cast a broad net in interviews and has sought the testimony of a long list of former Trump aides, including ex-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former adviser Stephen Miller.

Smith is separately investigating Trump over the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as efforts to obstruct that probe.

It is not clear when either of the special counsel’s investigations will end or who, if anyone, will be charged.
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Montana Transgender Legislator Silenced After ‘Blood on Your Hands’ Comment

Montana statehouse Republicans on Wednesday silenced Democratic transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr from floor debates for breaking decorum after she said lawmakers who backed a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors would have “blood on their hands.”

Under the motion that passed 68-32, Zephyr will be allowed to vote but is barred from the House floor, anteroom or gallery for the remainder of the legislative session, scheduled to end on May 10.

The discord in Montana — which has garnered national attention amid an escalating culture war in the United States over issues such as transgender rights — has brewed since an April 18 debate over Senate Bill 99. The state measure seeks to ban transgender health care treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones.

‘Tantamount to torture’

Zephyr, a first-term representative from Missoula, said in the debate that denying such care was “tantamount to torture,” and that a ban would lead to more suicides.

“If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr said.

In response, the Republican supermajority silenced her within the chamber until she apologized, prompting a large protest by Zephyr supporters at the statehouse on Monday.

When protesters in the gallery disrupted that session by chanting “Let her speak,” the House speaker ordered representatives to abandon the floor, but Zephyr stayed in place, pointing a microphone toward her supporters.

Seven demonstrators were arrested, and Republicans increased their attention on Zephyr, with the ultraconservative Montana Freedom Caucus on Monday urging she be punished.

Majority Leader Sue Vinton, who presented the motion, stressed the need for decorum so that the rights of all representatives were protected.

“Monday, this body witnessed one of its members participating in conduct that disrupted and disturbed the orderly proceedings,” Vinton said. “This member [Zephyr] did not accede to the order of the speaker.”

Zephyr remained defiant on Wednesday, telling the chamber that her “blood on your hands” comment was “not being hyperbolic.”

“When the speaker asks me to apologize on behalf of decorum, what he is really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed,” Zephyr said. “He is asking me to be complicit in this legislature’s eradication of our community. And I refuse to do so.”

The Democratic Party, the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocates criticized the censure as undemocratic.

500 bills

Republican legislators across the country have sought to ban certain health care for transgender youth. One tracker by a group of independent journalists says more than 500 bills have been introduced that they say would infringe on the rights of non-conforming gender people.

Such bills were once mostly limited to regulating changing rooms and women’s sports but now also include limiting health care access for transgender adults and in some cases seek to charge parents and doctors with child abuse if they provide treatment.

Opponents of such treatment are skeptical of the major medical associations that support gender-affirming care, raising concerns that minors are too easily allowed to make such life-changing decisions.

A similar break in decorum at a statehouse in Tennessee earlier this month led the Republican supermajority to expel two Democratic lawmakers who had protested in support of gun control, drawing national attention. They were promptly reappointed to their seats by their county legislatures and earned a trip to the White House.
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