Editor’s Note: This story was adapted from the April 28 edition of CNN’s Meanwhile in America, the email about US politics for global readers. Click here to read past editions and subscribe.
Is President Joe Biden following a script or is he just supremely prepared?
A photo of the president’s detailed note cards taken during a press conference has led his political foes to raise new questions about his age at the start of his reelection bid and to condemn what they see as an overly cozy approach from the White House press corps.
The note card captured by photojournalists on Wednesday shows a head shot of a reporter on whom Biden would call, a pronunciation guide for her name, and most controversially, seems to say what she would ask.
Los Angeles Times reporter Courtney Subramanian’s question did turn out to be on a basically similar issue to the one predicted on Biden’s card – about an apparent conflict between US efforts to slow semiconductor manufacturing in China and the trading interests of its allies. But the query did not exactly match the one Biden was apparently expecting and the LA Times said in a statement that Subramanian did not submit her question to the press office in advance, though she had been in regular contact with White House aides seeking information for her reporting.
That didn’t stop conservative media from trumpeting that a conspiracy was afoot between the president and the press, and that 80-year-old Biden was a puppet of his aides. Pundits relished using words like “crib sheet” and “cheat notes.” The controversy was especially acute because Biden has been under fire for holding fewer press conferences than his predecessors. And of course, the oldest president in history just announced a bid for a second term that would end when he is 86.
But this episode appears to be more innocent than Biden’s…
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