DC GONE HOLLYWOOD
WASHINGTON — The White House press room’s descent into chaos after the cast of “Ted Lasso” was trotted out to do a stunt appearance before a daily briefing was just the latest in a series of celebrity cameos orchestrated by President Biden’s aides that have at times irked reporters.
While it’s common for presidents to host celebrities to boost their popularity or to underscore policy priorities, Biden aides often dispatch them to address the press in the briefing room as well, creating soft-news spectacles that dwarf any story that may then emerge from reporters questioning officials.
On Monday afternoon, an actor portraying a fictional reporter on “Ted Lasso” asked the first question of the press briefing — of fellow actor Jason Sudeikis — in a cutesy moment that delayed the start of real press inquiries.
The Biden administration has used the briefing room repeatedly to give a platform to celebrities, who generally depart without taking any questions from reporters — drawing more measured objections as well from the press corps.
Pop star Olivia Rodrigo, then 18, visited the briefing room in July 2021 to encourage fellow teenagers to submit to COVID-19 vaccination.
The Korean boy band BTS followed in May 2022, supposedly to discourage anti-Asian hate crimes in the US. The visit coincided, however, with a political campaign in South Korea to exempt the K-pop stars from mandatory military service because of their value as cultural ambassadors.
In June 2022, actor Matthew McConaughey stood behind the briefing podium to call for new gun control measures after the massacre of 21 people at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school. He left without taking questions.
“Were you grandstanding just now, sir?” veteran journalist James Rosen of Newsmax shouted as McConaughey left the room.
After the movie star’s exit, ABC reporter Karen Travers, a board member of the White House Correspondents’ Association and a frequent advocate for better press access, asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to “commit that going forward, if there is a guest or a celebrity here, that you would ensure that they would stay at the podium and take questions from reporters after they speak.”
“They are a guest, that is not for me to ensure,” Jean-Pierre replied at the time. “They are a guest of ours. It is up to them if they want to take questions or not. We respect them and what they want to do. Matthew was here and when he was done, he said thank you and he walked away. That really is up to him.”
Other celebs who visited the Biden briefing room include Cyndi Lauper, who appeared last December before performing at a signing ceremony for a bill that reconfirmed the judicially mandated legality of same-sex marriage by repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which then-Sen. Biden backed.