The Morning Jolt, back on June 30, 2022:
At the beginning of the month, Edward-Isaac Dovere of CNN shared what seems like a very revealing quote from an unnamed White House aide:
At the center is a president still trying to calibrate himself to the office. The country is pulling itself apart, pandemic infections keep coming, inflation keeps rising, a new crisis on top of new crisis arrives daily and Biden can’t see a way to address that while also being the looser, happier, more sympathetic, lovingly Onion-parody inspiring, aviator-wearing, vanilla chip cone-licking guy — an image that was the core of why he got elected in the first place.
“He has to speak to very serious things,” explained one White House aide, “and you can’t do that getting ice cream.” [Emphasis added.]
Yes, and a lot of Biden’s image from 2019 through last year was shaped by those anodyne images of him eating ice-cream cones. As Kyle Smith quipped, “The media have developed a curious idea that every time Joe Biden has ice cream, it constitutes news.” If you can project your persona successfully only when the atmosphere around you is the breezy, carefree fun of an afternoon on summer vacation, you probably shouldn’t pursue the job of commander in chief. The presidency is a tough job even in the best of times, and the country is enduring challenging times right now. Biden is just in over his head.
The news, today:
US president Joe Biden says he hopes a Gaza ceasefire deal can be agreed between Israel and Hamas by Monday, as he took questions from reporters while on a visit to an ice cream shop in New York. pic.twitter.com/nbiGmtpBy2
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 27, 2024
It’s perfect, isn’t it? The president of the United States is talking about life-and-death issues in between licks of mint chip. Biden is literally speaking about very serious things while getting ice cream, as that unnamed White House aide said he couldn’t. And the reason this is news is because reporters don’t get to ask Biden many questions; Biden’s appearance with late-night comedy host Seth Meyers is his first sit-down interview since October. He’s agreed to significantly fewer interviews and formal press conferences than his predecessors.