Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice, Zi-Ann Lum and Nick Taylor-Vaisey. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina President JOE BIDEN declined to hold a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU and Mexican President ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR after the trio’s meeting at the White House Thursday, the second time in a row the White House has skipped the traditional Q&A with a visiting foreign leader. The decision not to take questions didn’t just mark a break with tradition — it was also something of a snub of the foreign governments. For other country’s leaders, one of the perks of coming to the White House is the benefits that the setting can provide back home: standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the most powerful man in the world, parrying questions from both press corps about their nations’ relationship, with the famous building as the backdrop. While it’s not quite the Rose Garden or the East Room, Trudeau and AMLO were eager enough to speak to journalists in D.C. that they both scheduled their own individual press conferences at their respective embassies Thursday night. Asked about the lack of a press conference at today’s White House briefing, press secretary JEN PSAKI said the back story wasn’t “scandalous,” and pinned it on scheduling. She was also quick to note that Biden had taken questions from reporters 10 times this month. Although Biden frequently jokes that he’ll “get in trouble” for taking questions, Psaki noted that the president has been taking questions at the pool sprays before meeting Trudeau and AMLO, when some members of the press were granted brief access to take pictures of their meeting and initial greeting. “We’ll see what the end of today looks like and if the president wants to take questions, that’s certainly his right to take questions,” Psaki said. Biden ultimately answered zero questions that were shouted at him after the three-way meeting, according to a pool report. Reporters asked questions about Title 42 and the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Earlier, as pool reporters were brought into the Oval Office during Biden’s meeting with Trudeau, Biden answered two questions from reporters and confirmed the White House is considering a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics in China. According to presidential historian MARTHA KUMAR , it was President GEORGE H.W. BUSH who popularized the joint press conference with foreign leaders, although earlier presidents had occasional pressers with visiting dignitaries, like President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT when British Prime Minister WINSTON CHURCHILL came to the White House in December 1941. “It was Bush who appreciated the forum. He enjoyed his meetings with foreign leaders and saw the value of having leaders appear together to make statements concerning what they agreed to,” Kumar told us. “Having the two leaders appear after their meeting assured both agreed on the items in their statements.” Biden’s refusal to do this has caused problems in the past. He skipped the formal press conference for Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON’s visit in September, despite a British request that the two leaders hold one, according to two officials who were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. After the U.S. nixed the idea, Johnson went ahead and turned their Oval Office photo op into a freewheeling question-and-answer session, calling on multiple British reporters to take their questions as Biden sat by. When the American journalists tried to ask the president questions of their own, White House aides shouted over them and herded them from the room, drowning out any attempt from Biden to answer. Biden later complained to aides about how the chaotic scene played out, according to the officials. The president did, aides are quick to note, hold two separate news conferences on his most recent foreign trip to Europe and does, from time to time, take informal questions from reporters. But he has not frequently held the so-called 2+2 news conferences that usually mark the end of a bilateral meeting with a world leader, in which two journalists from each nation get to ask each leader a question. The White House Correspondents' Association lodged a complaint about the lack of a news conference on Thursday. Republicans continue to use the lack of interviews and public events as an opportunity to raise doubts about whether Biden is able to perform his presidential duties. And while the White House and Biden allies have downplayed the lack of public availability, some Democrats are worried that this strategy is harming Biden. “Great tactics can turn out to be terrible strategy over the long term,” a Democratic strategist working on several midterm elections told us. “If I worked [for] Biden, I’d never want him on TV and be happy any day that goes by without a gaffe. But we’re now in a situation where the former President is getting more press than the current, and it’s clearly corrosive to long term approval.” “In today’s media environment a 7/11 moment might even be a net win,” the strategist said, referring to a 2008 Biden gaffe in which he said you “cannot go to a 7-Eleven or Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” And, the strategist added, “it seems like a risk worth taking when you’re heading to 35%.” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? 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