If I were Joe Biden’s communications director (hello, Ben LaBolt!), I’d come into work every morning expecting to be fired and leave every night wondering why Chief of Staff Jeff Zients didn’t call and deliver the blow.
The job of the communications director is to manage the bully pulpit and make the President appear larger than he really is. It is to use the power of communications to project strength and leadership, to demonstrate a command of events and to reassure the American people about the wisdom of his vision for the future.
Today, we have a President who’s using the bully pulpit to communicate his love of snacks while the world burns.
Joe famously declined to do the traditional interview during the Super Bowl, where he could have talked about the unifying power of sports and its metaphor for the American people: play by the rules, show respect, be resilient.
For a President, the Super Bowl interview is what we like to call shooting fish in a barrel. It’s a platform which this year reached more than 70 percent of Americans and where the Q&A is highly choreographed. In other words, low-risk, high-reward.
Ignoring it not only squanders an opportunity, but also sends the wrong message.
“Either he doesn’t have anything to say or his team is worried about what he might say or how he’d say it," a veteran Democratic campaign operative told the New York Times. “Regardless, it’s a problem.”
Instead, while wars in Europe and the Middle East raged, Joe took the opportunity to declare war on overpriced snacks. Instead of being part of an event that unifies a polarized and traumatized America for three hours, Joe took to X and complained that ice cream and potato chips are too expensive.
Let’s not even get into the subtext of this spot — that while the President had an opportunity to talk about competition between the best of the best bringing America together, he instead chose to talk about stuffing his face with Oreos, Doritos, Goldfish and ice cream while being couch-locked for three hours. I guess Joe wasn’t a fan of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign.
Lest you think this was a one-off, it was quickly followed by this piece Joe released on Tik Tok, in which he did an impersonation of the Cookie Monster by declaring his love of “Mama Kelce’s” chocolate chip cookies.
Again, the subtext: How do we explain the fact that the U.S. has banned the use of Tik Tok on all federal property and devices as a precaution against the Chinese vacuuming up our data, yet the President chooses to release an inane video driving viewers to Tik Tok? Extra points if you can answer that question with a straight face.
Bonus subtext: The Tik Tok video was headlined “lol hey guys.” Joe apparently didn’t receive the recent memo from Tony Blinken in which the SecState cautioned the diplomatic corps against gender-biased language, specifically to stop using “guys” when addressing groups of people and instead use the phrase “you all.”
And then there was the appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers this week, where, after a few chuckles with the affable host, Joe retreated to a nearby ice cream shop to order up a giant cone of cashew ice cream. He stopped eating long enough to break the news that he expects a cease-fire in the Israeli-Hamas conflict by “the beginning of the weekend . . . I mean, the end of the weekend.”
Note that this is the Commander-in-Chief noshing on a waffle-cone ice cream while talking about a Middle East cease-fire as if it were a weekend dinner date. Also note Seth Meyers’ expression in the outtake — “There must be some way out of here,” he’s thinking.
Some context is required. While the President is cavorting across the new frontier of late night shows and social media, it should be noted that over the past 100 years, the only presidents who have held fewer traditional news conferences than Joe are Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
“President Biden hasn’t dropped the microphone; he appears to have lost it,” opined the Washington Post. “Mr. Biden is turning into a news media evader, and it’s harmful to his presidency and the nation.”
Ben LaBolt, the White House comms director, says it’s all part of a master strategy.
“Our ultimate goal is to reach the American people wherever and however they consume media, and that’s not just through the briefing room or Washington-based news outlets,” Ben told the New York Times. “The fracturing of the media and the changing nature of information consumption requires a communications strategy that adapts to reach Americans where they get the news.”
Apparently, the “changing nature of information consumption” is driving Joe to places like beautician Manny Mua’s YouTube channel to get his message out. I mean, why do a 3-minute spot on the Super Bowl when you can get 10 minutes with Manny?
I know, this is all funny and light and an attempt to portray the President as hip and youthful. And watching Joe lick ice cream is so innocuous compared to the insane clown shows that are Trump rallies. But still, Joe is the sitting President at a time when we’re poised on the brink of several simultaneous disasters. It’s a time that calls for discipline and decorum, not jocularity and chocolate chip cookies. Americans want a President who’s sober and measured, not one who’s led by the nose to an ice cream parlor.
For instance, the first major politician to go on a talk show was John Kennedy in 1960, when he appeared on the Jack Paar show while running for President. The segment had a few light-hearted laughs, but Kennedy quickly got down to business and turned it into a fireside chat on geopolitics.
As high-falutin as Ben LaBolt’s media strategy is (“disruption of information consumption”) the fundamentals still apply. A President must be seen and heard on their own terms, not the terms of Seth Meyers or Tik Tok or Manny Mua. A President must be visible and occupy the commanding heights of communication. And a President must never, ever eat ice cream in public.
Joe Biden is on the precipice of an epic presidential campaign. More than half of America will be rooting for him. To repeat, Joe, now is the time to project strength and leadership, to demonstrate a command of events and to assure the American people about the wisdom of your vision for the future. Complaining about shrinking bags of Doritos and talking about cease-fires with a mouthful of ice cream is antithetical.
Time for a reset, Mr. President. Fire Ben, rebuild your comms team, and use the bully pulpit as it was intended. There’s too much at stake to do otherwise.
Sure hope you're sending your excellent essays (including the proposed state of the union one) directly to the White House. Perhaps they'll hire you!!!
Spot on once again, Russ. Bravo