During Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Fox reporter Peter Doocy asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if it bothers President Biden when former presidents “suck up all the oxygen.”
Since the Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Trump last Thursday, the media cycle returned to all Trump, all the time, shoving Joe Biden into the background.
On Monday, every major news outlet covered each second of Trump’s journey from Florida to New York, even featuring live shots of Trump’s plane taxing to the runway for takeoff.
The media feeding frenzy continued once Trump’s plane landed in New York and the former president traveled to Trump Tower where would stay until his arraignment the following day.
The circus only intensified on Tuesday as Trump arrived at 100 Center Street to be processed and arraigned, with reporters and news crews outnumbering protesters outside of the building.
And even after Trump left Manhattan to return to Florida, the circus continued, with the former president gobbling up more TV news airtime by delivering a campaign speech to his most ardent supporters at Mar-a-Lago. Of the three 24-hour cable news outlets, only MSNBC declined to carry Trump’s campaign speech live.
When Doocy asked Jean-Pierre how the president feels about being upstaged by former presidents, the press secretary dismissed the question, saying that what is important to President Biden is continuing to “focus on the American people.”
Doocy followed up by suggesting that this meant it would be good for the president to “lay low for a couple news cycles.”
As she often does, Jean-Pierre ignored Doocy’s remark and opted instead to tout the president’s legislative achievements. She reminded Doocy of the president’s infrastructure legislation and noted that while the Trump administration boasted about the importance of improving infrastructure, it was President Biden who was able to get bipartisan support to get it done.
