Following President Joe Biden’s first White House press conference on Thursday, much of Fox News’ post-game commentary focused on complaints that the network’s own White House correspondent Peter Doocy didn’t get called on by the president.
Throughout Thursday afternoon’s press conference, Biden took questions from a variety of mainstream news outlets, such as the Associated Press, PBS, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and CBS News. However, after taking a series of final questions from Univision, Biden walked off, leaving Doocy and other reporters in the lurch.
During its special post-presser coverage, Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum immediately grumbled that the reporters in the room didn’t press Biden on topics such as immigration “to the extent that some of us would have liked to have seen,” prompting her to bring up the snub.
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“Peter Doocy was not given a question, which is of note as well,” she declared.
Moments later, the hosts turned to Doocy himself to comment on not getting a chance to toss out a question, and he immediately said he had a “binder full of questions” ready to toss the president’s way.
“I think some people were kidding, I was not kidding,” Doocy noted while holding up and flipping through his binder. “We had a lot and most of this stuff they did not get to.”
After pointing out that Biden was not asked about the coronavirus pandemic or green energy, Doocy went on to say that Biden was “pretty much on his own” at the podium and didn’t rely on his aides to call on reporters.
“Today was Biden with the list and once they got through about an hour and 20 minutes, he was done,” he added. “I’m not sure if that was the end of the list. If we were on it, he did not make it down that far.”
Following Doocy’s report, anchor Sandra Smith expressed sympathy for her colleague not getting his opportunity to press the president.
“We saw you in that room, we know you were prepared for it, thanks for showing us your binder, and sorry you didn’t get a question,” she said.
Further taking the White House to task for ignoring Doocy, anchor Dana Perino referenced a CNN reporter who—much as Doocy has done during the Biden era—made a name for himself for tangling with former President Donald Trump.
“Had I been there I would have told the president to call on Peter Doocy,” Perino groused. “Peter Doocy is not Jim Acosta. And he’s got good questions and the president has shown he is willing to answer questions from all those other people and what Peter Doocy just said, the two questions he would’ve asked, the president would have had a way to answer them.”
She continued: “Why make Peter Doocy the story? Just take his question and move on.”
