CHAPIN, SC — President Joe Biden The campaign provided lists of approved questions to two radio hosts who did the first interviews with him after his faltering debate performanceboth hosts said on Saturday.
Biden’s appearances on Thursday on Black radio shows in the critical states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were his first chances to show he could answer questions and discuss his record after a debate in which the 81-year-old repeatedly had difficulty finishing sentences and continue his case against Republican Donald Trump.
Radio host Earl Ingram said Saturday that Biden’s aides had contacted him directly ahead of his interview that aired Thursday and sent him a list of four questions in advance, which had not been negotiated.
“They gave me exactly the questions to ask,” Ingram, whose “The Earl Ingram Show” airs statewide on 20 Wisconsin channels, told The Associated Press. “There was no back and forth.”
The interviews were intended as part of an effort to restore confidence in Biden’s ability to not only govern but also campaign successfully over the next four years. But the revelations raised questions about whether Biden was capable of acting on an ad hoc basis and without planning after his disastrous debate performance.
Andrea Lawful-Sanders, host of “The Source” on WURD in Philadelphia, was a guest on CNN earlier this week and said she was given a list of eight questions, four of which she approved.
Biden’s campaign noted that it is customary to propose questions and said accepting the questions was not a condition of the interviews themselves.
Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said it’s “not at all unusual for interviewees to share topics they’d rather have,” adding that the questions sent to both Ingram and Lawful-Sanders were “relevant to the news of the day,” including Biden’s debate performance and “what he’s meant to Black Americans.”
She also pointed to a Virginia TV station that said Trump’s campaign canceled a post-debate interview after the station’s reporter refused to agree to terms for his questions. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the interview practices or whether such appearances had been canceled because of the subject matter.
Biden argued on Ingram’s show that much more than his own political future was at stake, saying, “The stakes are really high. I know you know this. For democracy, for freedom … our economy, they’re all at stake.”
Ingram asked four questions in his 18-minute interview. He asked if Biden “could talk about some of the accomplishments that we may or may not know about your record, particularly here in Wisconsin,” what was at stake for Black voters in the election, what Biden would say to people who believe their vote doesn’t matter, and if he could elaborate on his debate performance and a comment Trump made during the debate about people crossing the border and and took what he called “black jobs.”
“I haven’t had a good debate. That’s 90 minutes on the stage. Look what I’ve done in 3.5 years,” Biden said in answering the final question before speaking for several minutes about Trump, the economy and veterans’ issues.
Since the Biden interview, Ingram said all six phone lines for his weekday broadcast have been jammed with callers wanting to weigh in on whether Biden should drop out of the race. He estimates more than two-thirds of people want Biden to continue.
When asked about the list of questions, Ingram, who has worked in radio for 15 years and doesn’t consider himself a journalist, said the idea of receiving a list of questions for a guest made him think, but that it also presented an opportunity that might only come around once in your career.
“I probably would never have accepted it, but this was an opportunity to talk to the president of the United States,” he said.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP