The White House Press Conference is a peculiar institution, one of long standing and going back to when FDR met a gaggle of reporters to crowd around his desk and throw out questions, knowing that FDR could handle any ones that came up, avoiding hot potatoes and providing answers both glib and persuasive if he wanted to say something. Steve Early, His press secretary, facilitated information traffic rather than made much news. Jen Psaki, the present press secretary, who meets in the press room to take questions most days of the work week, follows most predecessors in not trying to make much news. She refers questions to the State or Defense Departments or to agencies to get details, and works hard not to utter a striking phrase or otherwise outshine or anticipate whatever the President might have said about a matter or what the President might soon say. That was different from what happened in the Trump Administration when press secretaries vied to be as partisan as possible and so curry favor with Trump, there being an audience of one for the press room, while Psaki’s audience is to the public, to make the Administration as surefooted as possible and in line with the Administration’s point of view.
The result is that the daily press conference will seem anodyne, just a shuffling of papers and pronouncements that let the White House go through its daily operations, such as executive office holders appointed, the scheduled trips announced for the President and the Vice President, announcements of policies already cleared by other agencies and within the White House, and reiterrations of pronouncements previously made, or sometimes to correct or clarrify misstatements, usually by saying that they were misunderstood, as when Biden said the Russians were engaging in genocide, but without giving an explanation of what that meant or what was its consequence, Psaki saying, when asked what it was that Biden had changed his mind about genocide, replied, candidly, that the President is at the top of the totem poe land so policy is what he states and so that was his judgment, leaving the State and Justice Departments to sort out what the operative meaning of that remark amounts to. I would go further to notice that Biden is a President who tells the truth of what he thinks to the American people, that he trusts them to understand what he meant, as that he was not out to try regime change just because he said that Putin should not be leader of his country. He was stating his moral outrage and that is what he feels, having seen the shell shocked victims of Russia, their residential areas pulverized in Kiev and elsewhere when Biden had seen some of them when they had found their way to Poland.
The anodyne nature of the questions asked by the reporters assigned to the White House are also responsible for the quality of the press conferences. You might think they could come up with something more interesting than whether or not an ambassadorship delayed will be delayed some more, or whether Nancy Pelosi kissed Biden on the cheek (or visa versa) in what some might consider a violation of Covid protocols-- perhaps prompted by the fact that mainstream reporters pointed out the extent that Trump had violated many covid protocols, when it was clear that any exceptions in Biden’s protocols were rare and minor while it was clear that Trump had contempt for masking or trying to avoid mingling. I could easily fashion a question Psaki couldn’t handle, such as asking what was the rationale for defending Ukraine so vigorously especially if the war got out of hand and turned into a major engagement between Russia and NATO. Would defending the war just because Russia had attacked without provocation reason enough? War opposed simply because it was entered? At the moment, Russian atrocities are vile enough to justify NATO support of Ukraine for military support, but that was not so at the beginning when it was expected that Russia would occupy the country in a week. What is the rationale for Biden’s war should it do more harm to the United States than leading to an increase to gasoline costs? Psaki would just repeat the well repeated American policy that the United States will not send its own troops into Ukraine, and move on, leaving a legitimate question unanswered. But trust Fox News to pick on irrelevancies, such as whether there is an uptick on refugees over the Rio Grande.
Given these restraints by Psaki and a lack of perception about the issues by the reporters themselves, I find the White House press conference a fascinating endeavor. Those daily briefings, no more than a list of the topics of current attention, exhibit the smooth running of the executive branch, up to “West Wing '' standards and performed in both Republican and Democratic Administrations, with the very notable exception of the Trump Administration. Policy is enunciated and action delegated from the top down and information and expertise move up the chain of command. There are interagency meetings whereby people consider policy and the ultimate decision by the President is decisive and clearly stated, even if not well explained. Psaki clears uncertain facts with his own shop as well as with the departments and the agencies, not just to put off a question but to get it right as to facts and policy. What the President and his employees do are so serious that what they say and do is carefully weighed, except for the President who uses his own judgment based on a very long time in government. It is nice to see the government smoothly doing its writ. Only a specialist reporter might know, for example, if the fish and wild life agency was doing its work properly, but you can see the government happen in the three or four sessions a week in the White House Press Room.
Today’s press conference, on April 25th, was typical in that they were a list of the topics of the day announced as a question and answered by Psaki so as to take out any stings there were in them. The questions were very various, such as a Texas National guardsman who had died rescuing two drug dealers from the Rio Grande and Psaki responded to the outraged questioner by saying that the President has long said that the immigration laws are broken and would support efforts to forge a new law. Other questions raised today showed Psaki very well briefed on a great many matters of public interest. Early on was a question about whether Secretary Austin really meant it when he said during his visit to Kiev that the United States objective was to degrade Russia’s military and Psaki answered that Austin was dealing with the Russian invasion itself without commenting on whether degrading the Russian military over the long run is an American ambition, though the NY Times headline the next day thought it was a big deal. Like many such answers, any informed reporter could have fashioned similar answers, and so are asked so as to raise an issue rather than garner new information, just as was the case with an early question as to whether there would soon be an end to military aid to Ukraine,was answered with a remark that there was no end to it now. The best answer for the press secretary is no news.Same with an answer that people should get their Covid shots if they are eligible and that Biden has long wanted controlling misinformation on social media without commenting on Elon Musk acquiring Twitter. Ditto on Psaki “reviewing” the tariff regime with China, and not “reviewing” the current sanctions on Russia, or not offering an assessment of Russian advances in East Ukraine. Psaki says Biden is aware of the impact of food prices on consumers aand also aware of current Palestinian-Israeli unrest. Deflecting whether there should be a law waiving student debt, Psaki reminds the reporters what she has said many times, that no student loans have been paid since Biden took office. And so on, across the gamut. The Administration knows what is going on. That is exhilarating, from lockdowns in Shanghai which impede goods to the United States, to refusing to comment on Putin’s mental health, questions full of agendas that are answered with “we are aware” while minding our tongue. Psaki is low key and informed even when a few months ago she was also low key and merely informative when she echoed Biden saying Putin would invade Ukraine, that notice earning but not rewarded with boldface.
A recent article in The New York Review of Books by Benjamin Nathans cited Max Weber’s “Politics As A Vocation” so as to explain the profession followed by Fiona Hill, Alexander Videman, and Marie Yovanovich, the last two of them toddlers who came from Ukraine and became experts on the area in, respectively, the Foreign Service and the Defense Department, while Hill immigrated to the United States to go to graduate school after being born and raised in Great Britain and working for the American State Department. These people would not surface into the public were it not for the extraordinary events of the first impeachment of Donald Trump. They are dedicated to their agencies , part of the permanent civil service that lasts in whatever administration so as to give clear expertise to the decision makers. They pride themselves on being the agents of the higher ups and yet, at the same time, selfless and objective, devoted to the government rather than to an administration. They are callings in Weber’s sense; dedicated to the principles rather than to their own self-interests. This cadre is maligned as the nefarious “deep state” but what it does, decade after decade, do the work of government and one of those things that allow for the government to have its administrative memory and capability regardless of the politicians who are elected for brief and perhaps mercurial tendencies.
I would suggest that in addition to the invisible civil service there is also a visible civil service which happens to be appointed for the pleasure of thePresident and with clear political predispositions, those of the governing party. These includeP_psaki, who is not going to remain in the job of press secretary for very much longer because her one and a quarter year tenure is too grueling an ordeal and because she has conveyed sufficient authority or gravitas so as to get a major cable contract and so an easier life as was the case when George Stephanopolis, who was co-campaign manager of Bill Clinton and one of his chiefs of staff and went on to be a major anchor for ABC News. The same is true of assistant secretaries and White House office staff who are known to insiders but take tours of duty which are the hallmarks of their careers, retiring to think tanks, just like a one or two term congressperson who keeps the title for the rest of his or her life and who believe they were part of history even if they did not exhibit, in their brief careers, the allegiance to and awareness of history that we would have thought were part of the decisive and historical roles however briefly they ascended to such titles.