Even feeding questions to a black radio host couldn’t save President Joe Biden from embarrassing himself — and it’s cost the host her job.
WURD-AM in Philadelphia announced in a statement on Sunday that it had “mutually agreed to part ways” with Andrea Lawful-Sanders, the host who interviewed Biden last Wednesday.
Lawful-Sanders’ interview with the president had initially gone viral after the president tripped over his own brain again, telling the interviewer that he was a female of color.
“By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, the first black woman to serve with a black president,” he said during the interview.
Biden: “I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, to serve with a black president”
Biden identifies as a black woman. This could be a game changer, folks.
— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) July 5, 2024
On Saturday, Lawful-Sanders confirmed during a CNN interview that Biden made this mistake while answering his campaign’s own questions.
“I got several questions. Eight of them and the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved,” she told CNN on Saturday.
A radio host who interviewed President Biden Wednesday tells me the White House sent her the questions before the interview. pic.twitter.com/9L6PRaUvgG
— Victor Blackwell CNN (@VictorBlackwell) July 6, 2024
Should Biden resign?
Lawful-Sanders’ acceptance of the White House questions violated WURD policies, according to Sunday’s statement from Sara Lomax, president and CEO of WURD Radio.
“On July 3, the first post-debate interview with President Joe Biden was arranged and negotiated independently by WURD Radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders without knowledge, consultation or collaboration with WURD management,” the statement said.
“The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners. As a result, Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio have mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.”
“WURD Radio remains an independent voice that our audience can trust will hold elected officials accountable,” the statement continued.
“As Pennsylvania’s only independent Black-owned talk radio station, WURD Radio has cultivated that trust with our audience over our 20-year history. This is something we take very seriously. Agreeing to a pre-determined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official policy.”
The station also noted that it had previously attended a White House event without agreeing to terms like this.
“Earlier this year when WURD Radio was invited to the White House on February 26 to host a day-long live broadcast featuring interviews with cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials, we agreed with the explicit understanding that we were not constrained to their suggested topics or talking points,” the statement noted.
“We were clear that our hosts would ask difficult and provocative questions of their own determination based on the needs and interests of WURD’s listening audience — Black Philadelphians. This is a hallmark of WURD Radio’s local, state and national coverage, day in and day out.”
The statement also noted that the “experience will strengthen WURD as we seek to grow from this incident. We will continue to be the unique platform that provides Black people a place where we can speak and be heard in our own voice – on our own terms.”
It’s unclear, in the end, what will be the most damning for Biden: The president’s gaffe, the acknowledgment that the gaffe came when he was answering what was, in essence, his own question, or that it came on a black-owned radio station that took such umbrage at the patronizing nature of the affair that it canned the host.
The Lawful-Sanders interview was one of several Biden conducted in an effort to try to mitigate the disaster of his June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump.
Another was with Milwaukee radio host Earl Ingram — which also featured questions provided by the Biden campaign. Another was with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which featured its own problems.
Even before the debate that occasioned these interviews, Biden was in deep trouble with black voters, and he knew it. The old strategy of saying stuff like “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” wasn’t going to cut it, particularly in swing states with large urban populations like Pennsylvania.
The interviews were meant to stabilize his standings with putatively friendly sources: Both black radio stations and Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton White House aide. They were also conducted over a long Independence Day weekend so that, if things didn’t go well, they could be drowned out by the fireworks and the revelry. If they did go well, you could expect clips to be broadcast by every Biden campaign outlet, and Biden-friendly news outlet, all the way to November.
Not only did Biden embarrass himself consistently, he did so with his own questions on black radio stations. The Stephanopoulos interview was hardly any better, with the president lobbed softballs which he constantly whiffed on.
But what may sting the most is that, in the process of patronizing black media so cravenly that he got a host fired, Biden still managed to humiliate himself. If ever there was a self-own, this was it.
