‘I Better Be Careful What I Say!’ Biden Reveals What Reporters Tell Him In Private About How They Cover Him

President Joe Biden cautioned “I better be careful what I say” as he dished to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on what reporters have told him about how the modern media landscape shapes their coverage.

One part of Biden’s persona that has come into sharper relief during his presidency is his playful but punchy relationship with the press, whom he will let know when he doesn’t appreciate a line of questioning.

On Thursday’s edition of Deadline: White House, Wallace scored an extensive interview with the president, and got him to put on his not-infrequently-used media critic hat.

While discussing his poll numbers and predictions of doom that did not come to pass during the 2022 midterms, the president volunteered that a lot of reporters tell him it’s the necessity of building a “brand” that shapes their coverage:

BIDEN: I know the polling numbers are not good, but they were the same way when I ran and won. Everybody thought I was going to get clobbered in a primary. I got 80 million votes in the last election.

And the same thing — I remember I was saying that I thought the Democratic Party was going to do extremely well in the off-year election.

WALLACE: In the midterms, yes.

BIDEN: And other than the Bushes (ph), it did. I mean, and it was a great — and a victory by not having a significant loss. We were going to lose 40 seats and all that.

I just think that it’s a matter of — and this is not a criticism of press. It’s an observation. There’s a lot to be worried about around the world. And talking to a lot of reporters, they tell me — I better be careful what I say here.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: A number of reporters have indicated that there’s no editors anymore…

WALLACE: Huh.

BIDEN: … on what they do.

And I had one reporter tell me that: “You know, I’m a reporter, but I got my — one of my editors of the newspaper came to me and said: ‘You don’t have a brand yet. You need’ — and it was a major newspaper.

And he said: “Well, I’m not an editorial writer.”

“But you need a brand so people will watch you and listen to you because of what they think you’re going to say.”

And I just think there’s a lot changing.

Watch above via Deadline: White House.

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