Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Eli | Email Lauren When German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ arrives at the White House on Friday to meet with President JOE BIDEN, it will be against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, China’s rising economic and military heft, and the race to accelerate green technology. Needless to say, White House reporters have a lot of questions for the pair. But they likely won’t get an opportunity to ask them. The White House does not plan to hold a press conference with Biden and Scholz. And while there isn’t a joint presser — often called a “two-by-two” — during every head of state visit, it’s unusual not to offer one when a G-7 leader or another important ally comes to Washington. The absence is particularly notable during such a critical moment for the U.S.-German relationship. And it has frustrated members of the press corps who worry that it's becoming the norm for the president, who is more press shy than his recent predecessors. When Biden hosted Prime Minister KISHIDA FUMIO of Japan in January, there was no joint press conference offered that day, although there was plenty of time left to do so (Biden left the White House at 3:15 p.m. to go to his Wilmington, Del., home for the weekend). A few days later when Prime Minister MARK RUTTE of the Netherlands visited during a flurry of negotiations over the White House’s plans to cut off China from the chip supply chain, there was no two-by-two. And when President LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA of Brazil visited in February, fresh off an insurrection in his own country that mirrored the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, there was, again, no press conference. It forced the Brazilian leader, seemingly eager to engage with reporters, to go it alone on the West Wing driveway in the dark of night to take questions. “It was stunning to see a foreign head of state having a press conference in such a chaotic setting inside the White House gates,” said a White House correspondent. “A disappointment for foreign journalists, and perhaps for some global leaders who would like to make the most of the visit. Press access shouldn't be taken lightly, especially in such a consequential time for the world order.” Biden is on pace to hold far fewer joint press conferences than his predecessors. He’s held 10 since taking office, according to data from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. By the time they left office, Presidents DONALD TRUMP had held 44 joint pressers, BARACK OBAMA held 95, GEORGE W. BUSH was at 157 and BILL CLINTON held 131. Behind the scenes and publicly, the White House Correspondents’ Association has pushed for a two-by-two with Scholz. During Monday’s briefing, NBC’s KELLY O’DONNELL, WHCA vice president, advocated directly for it. “It’s been more than a year since White House journalists have been able to ask [Scholz] questions, and he’s obviously a very important ally to the United States,” she told press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE. When Bloomberg’s JORDAN FABIAN asked during the same briefing whether the White House decided against holding a two-by-two “due to any lingering tensions over providing tanks to Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre said, “Sometimes we have those types of press conferences, and sometimes we don’t. It doesn’t occur at every time. But certainly it’s not that.” NPR’s TAMARA KEITH, WHCA president, brought up the issue again to National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY during Thursday’s briefing. He defended the decision: “It's a tight visit, working-level visit and it just wasn't part of the schedule for either leader.” Some members of the foreign press corps have suggested that the White House might not be totally at fault for this week’s absence of a joint presser. They note that Scholz has had a rocky relationship with reporters and has tried to limit his exposure to the press, especially as his government is late in delivering its highly-anticipated national security strategy plan. Scholz did not invite German reporters to travel with him to Washington (a standard practice). And it wasn’t until the German press corps pressured its embassy in Washington to make Scholz available that the chancellor agreed to a background briefing on Friday morning ahead of his meeting with Biden, according to multiple reporters familiar with the negotiations. Still, other reporters said the White House should make clear that taking questions from the press is an expectation when visiting Washington, regardless of a foreign leader’s appetite for engaging with reporters. “The White House should make that the conditions,” said another correspondent. MESSAGE US — Are you OLAF SCHOLZ? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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