CNN
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Joe Biden’s team provided a list of questions to a radio host who interviewed the president this week following his debate performance, the host told CNN.
“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved them,” Andrea Lawful-Sanders, host of “The Source” in Philadelphia, said in an interview Saturday with CNN’s Victor Blackwell on “First of All.”
When Blackwell asked Lawful-Sanders if the White House had sent her any questions for approval, she said yes. “I received several questions, eight of them, and the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved,” she added.
CNN later clarified that the interview was conducted by Biden’s campaign.
Blackwell noted that Lawful-Sanders and Earl Ingram, host of “The Earl Ingram Show” in Milwaukee, who also interviewed the president this week, asked Biden “essentially the same questions.”
A Biden campaign spokesperson On Saturday, he did not deny that the campaign had provided questions, but said the interviews were not conditioned on accepting the questions provided.
“It is not uncommon for interviewees to share their preferences for topics. These questions were relevant to the news of the day — the president was asked about his performance in the debate as well as what he has done for Black Americans,” spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in a statement. “We do not condition interviews on accepting these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they believe are most relevant to informing their listeners.”
The radio interviews come at a critical time for Biden’s political future, as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, donors and supporters express deep concerns about his age and ability to serve a second term as president.
Biden also took questions from reporters on Friday, speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for 22 minutes, all about his age and fitness for office. He will take questions from reporters again at the NATO summit in Washington next week.
Biden, who has faced intense scrutiny this week, made some missteps in his conversation with Lawful-Sanders.
“I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president — the first black woman — to serve with a black president, proud to have been involved with the first black woman on the Supreme Court,” he said during the interview, recorded Wednesday and aired Thursday.
Reached for comment Thursday night, a Biden campaign spokesman blasted the “absurdity” of criticism of the president’s missteps. “It was clear what President Biden meant when he talked about his historic record, including a record number of federal judicial appointments,” spokesman Ammar Moussa said.
Lawful-Sanders’ comments come after a Biden campaign social media account shared a video Monday of a local news anchor in Virginia saying that Donald Trump’s campaign had pulled out of an interview after asking for questions in advance. The interview was scheduled to take place around the former president’s rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, the day after the debate.
“We wanted to hear more about Trump tonight. Our Mike Gooding was scheduled to interview the former president after the rally,” WVEC anchor Dan Kennedy said. “But about 15 minutes ago, Trump’s team canceled the interview with Mike Gooding after asking us what our questions would be for the former president, telling Mike that there was no more time and that the former president only wanted to talk about last night’s debate.”
In a social media post sharing the video, Biden’s campaign mocked Trump for canceling the interview, writing: “A paranoid and overwhelmed Trump cancels his TV interview after asking the reporter what questions he planned to ask.”
Asked by CNN on Saturday whether Trump had backed out of the interview, the former president’s campaign ignored the claim and instead criticized Biden for allegedly providing questions to interviewers in advance.
“President Trump held a rally in Virginia and then participated in local interviews that covered a wide range of topics, not just those related to the debate,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. “Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his campaign are bullying the media into asking pre-screened, vetted questions and trying to pass it off as normal behavior. It is not.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Aaron Pellish and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
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