Emily Compango on Biden’s cheat sheet: You can’t script four years of a presidency
‘Outnumbered’ hosts discuss President Biden’s communication skills after photos captured the president using a cheat sheet during a press conference Wednesday.
President Biden is facing immense scrutiny after images captured him using a detailed cheat sheet during a press conference Wednesday which included a question from an L.A. Times reporter.
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany challenged the White House press team's actions, highlighting that she never experienced a situation like this during her time in the Trump administration.
"It is really something," she said on "Outnumbered" Thursday. "The question involves semiconductors. It also involved alliances and how it would be affected. I can tell you, I never had that level of detail to provide President Trump from a legacy print media outlet like this one. Occasionally you'd have foreign reporters have a very nuanced question they want to ask him that's trying to get a leg up in the briefing. But the idea that a reporter from the L.A. Times would give this, it really is something."
As Biden spoke alongside South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in the White House Rose Garden, a photographer captured a small cheat-sheet in the president's hand signaling he had advanced knowledge of a question from Los Angeles Times journalist Courtney Subramanian.
The small paper also included a picture of the reporter along with the pronunciation breakdown of her last name. "Question #1" was handwritten at the top of the sheet, indicating the president should call on her first at the conclusion of his remarks.
"How are YOU squaring YOUR domestic priorities — like reshoring semiconductors manufacturing — with alliance-based foreign policy?" read the question in Biden's hand.
While McEnany conceded it is possible the reporter provided topics to the White House press team, which then drafted questions for the cheat sheet, she argued it appears the team was given a heads-up.
"I talked to several members of my staff who were in lower press. I was in upper press, lower presses where you had interactions on a daily basis with reporters. It's really the front lines. And they said, no, nobody was coming to us with topics, with exact questions," she said. "Occasionally we would get the topic, but certainly not the question. And they said to me, we put in the work. So when we came to you, and we said, we think this person's going to ask this or that person's going to ask this, it's because we looked at their Twitter feed, we looked at their articles, we did the research, and we could surmise what we thought the reporter would ask. But it was putting in the work, not getting a head start, as it seems to be in this case."
The reporter, who was in fact called upon first but whose last name was omitted by the president, asked Biden, "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?"
A separate paper in Biden's hand revealed the names of administration officials in the order of their remarks. Both cheat sheets were dated April 26, 2023.
The L.A. Times denied any wrongdoing and said in a statement to Fox News that "Our reporter did not submit any questions in advance of the Q&A with President Biden. Courtney Subramanian covers the White House for the Los Angeles Times. As such, she 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."
Fox News contributor Marie Harf argued that the incident was being "a little overblown."
"Principals often have a heads-up on what kinds of issues reporters want to ask about and talk about. And at the end of the day, President Biden can answer it however he wants to," Harf said. "I am 100% confident this White House is not telling reporters what to ask. That is a ludicrous thing to say he is being prepared by his staff for the questions they know will get asked. That happens every day."
Co-host Emily Compagno, however, claimed the situation seemed like another incident where the president's hand was being held with detailed cheat sheets.
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"Because unless there's an Ouija board involved, I don't understand how you can say maybe he knew the topics and then get to word for word the question. Somewhere along the line, he's having his hand held," Compagno said.
McEnany also pushed back on Harf's comments, noting that the inclusion of a specific question prepared for President Biden combined with his lack of regular press conferences makes this incident "problematic."
Fox News' Yael Halon contributed to this report.
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