GOP senator complains that Biden doesn't tweet or go on TV enough

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Monday attacked President Joe Biden for his restraint on social media, suggesting Biden isn’t “in control” because he’s not tweeting all day long.

Cornyn tweeted a quote from a Politico article that pointed out the difference between Biden and Donald Trump’s communication strategy:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews. Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. The public comments are largely scripted. Biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters,” Cornyn tweeted, a word-for-word paragraph from the Politico article.

But Cornyn then added that the strategy, “Invites the question: is he really in charge?”

However, it’s not accurate to say that Biden is “not doing cable news interviews.”

Since he was elected in November, Biden has done a number of interviews with mainstream media outlets, including with CNN’s Jake Tapper, CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell, and ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Biden has also answered questions from reporters numerous times either while leaving the White House to travel for White House events, as well as at an official news conference.

Ultimately, appears like Cornyn was trying to compare Biden’s measured approach to communication to that of Donald Trump, who would often go off-script, much to his own staff’s dismay.

Over his four-year tenure, Trump blindsided numerous aides by firing them by tweet. He would also tweet policy announcements that surprised his own staff and sent the West Wing into a tailspin. Trump’s bigoted ban on transgender people serving in the military, for example, blindsided his joint chiefs of staff, who were unaware of the policy change. (Biden has since reversed the ban.)

Trump also spent hours calling into “Fox & Friends” — Fox News’ morning program — where he’d be lobbed softball questions by the hosts, who sometimes had to coach him into taking back offensive comments that could hurt him politically.

And, of course, Trump infamously spent many of his days tweeting baseless conspiracy theories, childish insults, and media critiques as he watched hours of cable news shows.

In fact, Trump’s Twitter use was criticized even by his own supporters, with polls and focus group panels over his four years in office showing that even his supporters wished he would stop tweeting.

Now, Trump can no longer tweet because he was permanently banned from the platform after the social media outlet said he violated the company’s policy against inciting violence following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Cornyn’s criticism of Biden drew scorn on social media.

“Making meandering calls into Fox and Friends and rage tweeting at all hours is how you demonstrate you’re truly running the country, per John Cornyn,” Sarah Longwell, a GOP strategist who founded the group Republican Voters Against Trump in 2020, tweeted.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.