President Donald Trump is quickly showcasing his accessibility to reporters days after returning to the White House, a stark contrast to his Democratic predecessor who frequently ducked questions and took scripted questions from reporters.
“We’ll take a few questions,” the president said on Tuesday, after announcing what’s said to be a half-trillion dollar investment by top tech companies to vastly expand the nation’s artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Trump then took questions for half an hour from reporters gathered at the White House.
It was the second straight day the new president held an informal, off-the-cuff and freewheeling news conference with reporters.
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
On Monday, hours after he was inaugurated at the U.S. Capitol, Trump took questions for 45 minutes as he sat in the Oval Office and simultaneously signed an avalanche of executive orders and actions. The back and forth with reporters was carried live by Fox News and CNN.
Trump on Wednesday is taking questions from Fox News’ Sean Hannity, for his first Oval Office interview since returning to the White House.
The sit-down will run at 9 p.m. ET on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
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“The president is the tip of the spear and he’s been active in wanting to go out and communicate both his successes and the challenges that we have, and he’s been active in wanting to solve those,” deputy White House chief of staff for communications Taylor Budowich told Fox News.
President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)
The accessibility with reporters showcases Trump’s unscripted nature, and it stands in stark contrast with former President Joe Biden, whose interactions with reporters were more limited and at times tightly stage-managed.
“Did Biden ever do news conferences like this?” Trump asked on Monday, as he appeared to take a jab at the former president.
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Julie Mason, the host of a national radio program, veteran White House reporter and former elected board member of the White House Correspondents Association, told Fox News “it is completely refreshing to have a president who is accessible, available.”
“He’ll answer any question you throw at him. He’s not always happy with the questions he gets, but he engages with journalists. That’s the most important thing. Their job is to inform the public about what is going on at the White House and having direct access to the president is essential to that,” Mason emphasized.
She added that “Biden was kept very much under wraps. Reporters rarely got a chance to ask him anything. It was a huge frustration in the press corps. This is completely different.”
President Biden listens to a question during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Jan. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Trump is known for his extended interactions with reporters. He held two unconstrained news conferences at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, during his transition back to the presidency.
And while for years he has accused reporters of being “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” and while his answers to their questions keep fact-checkers busy, his exchanges with the media are often free-flowing, without any aides selecting reporters to ask questions.
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Budowich says Trump’s accessibility and off-the-cuff style are contributing factors to his political success.
“The reason we won this election is because of Donald Trump. The reason why we are going to succeed in executing his agenda is because of Donald Trump,” he argued.
And he touted that Trump “in the first two and a half days, has accomplished what most presidents fail to accomplish in their first two years.”