Concha: Biden is the 'absentee president' without press conference
FOX News contributor discusses president going first six weeks without formally meeting media on 'America Reports'
Joe Biden is showing himself to be an "absentee president" by not holding a solo press conference or scheduling an address to Congress despite having been in office for more than six weeks, Joe Concha told "America Reports" Thursday.
"I look at what President Biden said on January 14th where he said, as president-elect, he would address Congress 'next month', as in February," said Concha, a Fox News contributor and The Hill media columnist. "And when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about that, [she] said no promise was made that would happen, even though the president’s own words said they would."
Biden's immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, held his first news conference on Feb. 16, 2017, while Barack Obama held his first news conference on Feb. 9, 2009.
In Biden's first six weeks, Concha noted, he has enacted sweeping executive actions like the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline project.
"[With] all of these actions that the president is taking without having to be held accountable for them, I would think that a guy ... who got 81 million votes -- the most in U.S. history, Joe Biden, with the wind at his back, would take advantage and address the country during a time of crisis in terms of COVID, in terms of the economy, in terms of a rising China," Concha said, "and instead we have an absentee president at this point."
Concha went on to suggest that Biden's team "has zero confidence that this president can handle questions outside of handpicked reporters, which we have seen four or five questions and the questions are generally friendly unless the guy's name is [Fox News White House correspondent] Peter Doocy, and then from there we don’t hear from him in any capacity when he speaking at events."
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Concha added that he personally would like to hear Biden respond to questions about opening more migrant holding facilities for young border crossers, as well as the fact that 91% of his party's $1.9 trillion spending bill dubbed as COVID relief doesn't fund healthcare-related expenditures.
"How do you justify that? I would be curious to see how the president answers those questions," he said. "I have a feeling we will not see that happen anytime soon because I don’t think there is the confidence there that he can do it."