NBC reporter admits White House used COVID to limit press access, avoid tough questions for Biden

A reporter for NBC News appeared to acknowledge this week that the Biden administration has used coronavirus restrictions to limit the White House press corps' access to the president and avoid "potentially difficult or uncomfortable" questions.

During a panel discussion hosted by the Meridian International Center Tuesday on the topic of "Reporting on the Biden White House: A Lookahead to Day 100," NBC News White House correspondent Geoff Bennett was asked if he was "concerned" that "reasonable" restrictions put in place during the transition and into the first weeks of the Biden presidency will lead to "more permanent changes".

Bennett began by citing "spacing and access" issues reporters have had, in addition to the White House forcing journalists to pay an average of $180 for their own COVID tests, which he said smaller news organizations or freelancers may not be able to afford. 

"One of the things that people didn't get good enough sense of -- this was certainly the case during the transition -- was that the COVID restrictions allowed the Biden team to really limit the reporters who were brought into those press conferences in that theater in Wilmington. And then beyond that, they were able to select the folks who got to ask questions of then-President-elect Biden," Bennett said, according to the Media Research Center.

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"By doing that ... the Biden comms teams, they were basically doing their job, right?" Bennett continued. "They had a message they wanted to get forward and they were trying to protect their principal. They didn't know the questions that we were gonna ask, but they certainly knew who we were, all the reporters were known quantities. So there was no chance that they were gonna call on, you know, some local reporter from some unnamed newspaper who was gonna ask Joe Biden a potentially difficult or uncomfortable question." 

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Bennett added that the panel of journalists should be "aware of" the strategy as COVID restrictions begin to lift, but later expressed hope that one day the Rose Garden will be filled with "dozens upon dozens of reporters" that will be able to ask Biden questions.

Also Tuesday, the White House announced that the president will hold his first formal press conference on March 25.