In politics, you’re either on-message or you’re losing, let’s get to it. Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week, clarify the question.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden held a news conference in the East Room of the White House to take a bit of a victory lap after the Senate passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Side note, regardless of where you stand on the bill, it’s hard to argue that we’re keeping pace when an airport in Singapore looks like this, and an airport in New York looks like this.
What was most notable to me from the press conference Q&A session, was the most predictable question of the day, asking the President about fellow Democrat and soon to be former New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, announcing he would resign over accusations of sexual harassment.
President Biden, who to is reportedly pretty close to the Cuomo family and has been for about 20 years, had publicly called on the governor to resign. He’d done the hard part, and then he got this question first from the Associated Press.
– Reporter: What is your reaction to Governor Cuomo’s, his announcement that he’s stepping down. You called on him to resign, did you think he would?
– Biden: I respect the Governor’s decision, and I respect the decision he made.
He got another question about Cuomo, about 12 minutes later.
Reporter: I know you called on him to resign, I know you condemn to the alleged behavior, but you’re someone who’s spent a lot of time with mayors and governors, how would you assess his 10 and a half years as governor of the state?
Biden: In terms of his personal behavior or what he’s done as a governor?
Marty: Great clarification by the President. The request to assess Governor Cuomo’s performance was a live hand grenade because Biden could assume the question was about his overall performance as governor, and the answer could be misconstrued as if it had been asked about his personal conduct. Here’s the clarification from the reporter.
Biden: In terms of his personal behavior, or what he’s done as a governor?
Reporter: What he’s done as a governor.
Biden: Well, he’s done a hell of a job. Well, he’s done a hell of a job. And, I mean both on everything from access to voting, to infrastructure, to a whole range of things, that’s why it’s so sad.
Marty: Biden gives a pretty solid answer about some of the accomplishments of his friend without condoning the behavior. That’s a solid answer and one they likely practiced, and here’s why he was right to clarify. After initially concluding the Q&A, the President came back to the podium and took a few additional questions.
Reporter 2: Can you really say that he has done, and I quote, a hell of a job even if he’s accused of sexually harassing women–
Biden: Now look, you’re asking two different questions.
Marty: Now, at best the reporter is asking if you can say someone has done a great job if they’ve also sexually harassed someone while doing it, fair point. But you can see the President takes her question to be a bit of a mischaracterization of his earlier response.
Now see how quickly the President was proven to be wise to clarify the first time.
Reporter 2: Can you really say that he has done, and I quote, a hell of a job, even if he accused of sexually harassing–
Biden: Now look, you’re asking two different questions. I ask the substantive, should he remain as governor is one question, and women should be believed when they make accusations that are able to on the face of them, make sense, and investigated. They’re investigated, and the judgment was made that what they said was correct, that’s one thing. The question is, did he do a good job on infrastructure? That was the question, he did.
Reporter 2: The question was how did he do as a governor–
Biden: No, the question was, correct me if I’m wrong.
Reporter: How was he as a governor in general?
Biden: Well as a governor in general, obviously–
Reporter: Outside of how general behavior.
Biden: Outside of this personal behavior, okay.
Reporter 2: Then can you separate the two, since–
Biden: No, I’m not, I was asked a specific question, I’m trying to answer it specifically, what do you want to ask me specifically?
Reporter 2: Well, I’d like to ask you on infrastructure as well–
Marty: President Biden is a highly experienced politician and perfectly capable of handling a press conference. One of the reasons he’s so good is he clarifies questions to make sure comments are characterized with the correct context.
So, what’s the lesson?
Anytime you take questions from a reporter in a press conference, or one-on-one, it’s well worth your time to answer a question with any question you might have about exactly what they are asking, never assume you are on the same page.
Experienced politicians and spokespersons will develop this ability to consider all the ways the vagueness of a question could cause issues and they challenge it before it becomes a problem.
Some reporters do want to stir up controversy, but most have high regard for accuracy. When you know your position, and you have a clear answer, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by making sure you and the reporter understand the question the same way before you give your answer.
Getting both parts right is critical to clarity and to accuracy.
That’s it for this week, more On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political underground. Make sure you subscribe to this YouTube channel and visit the site to sign up for our weekly email update. You can find more On Message videos, in-depth Utah political stories and analysis, plus podcasts and so much more at utahpoliticalunderground.com.
