(PatrioticPost.com)- During his much-anticipated first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Biden watch with amusement as Russian security officials began shoving American reporters out of the room.
BREAKING VIDEO: Watch press pool reporters pushed away from Biden-Putin meeting room. "Go away please" pic.twitter.com/o051Gku0cR
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) June 16, 2021
The scuffle between Russian security and reporters grew so chaotic, most of President Biden’s opening remarks got drowned out.
According to Politico reporter Anita Kumar, journalists were pushed and shoved. They were yelling at each other to move, but nobody did. Then Russian security started to move the red rope between reporters and the two leaders further back to push reporters away.
As reporters resisted, the Russians began pushing them, yelling at them to get out. At this point, both reporters and White House officials started screaming at the Russians demanding they stop manhandling reporters.
Meanwhile, both Biden and Putin sat watching the melee with smiles on their faces. At one point, Biden said something unheard to his interpreter then smiled.
Some reporters were shoved nearly to the ground, and many tripped over the red rope Russian security was trying to move.
Ordinarily, US officials demand greater press access during Presidential foreign trips. But the Biden White House severely limited press access throughout Biden’s first trip abroad.
During his trip to NATO, Biden’s team scrapped the traditional “pool spray” before the president’s meeting with Turkish President Erdogan. Irritated American reporters were forced to wait in the hall for over an hour and a half while the meeting took place, only getting news of what went on through Turkish government’s postings on Twitter.
White House reporters were kept far from Biden during the G7 as well. While the President stayed in a swank castle-theme hotel in Cornwall, the White House placed its press pool in a far less glamorous location quite a distance away – effectively eliminating any possibility of chance encounters with the President.
For all the criticism the press had for President Trump, even they praised how much access they had during Trump’s foreign trips. While at Korea’s Demilitarized Zone in 2019, then-press secretary Stephanie Grisham even got into a scuffle with North Korean agents when she attempted to give the press pool access to the DMZ.
