Christy Kelly, reporter at The Arizona Sun Times, said she believes the Philadelphia radio show host who was terminated after admitting that she asked President Joe Biden questions provided to her by his campaign seemed to be the “scapegoat” of media pundits adhering to the Biden campaign’s practice regarding predetermined interview questions.
WURD Radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders recently revealed on CNN that the questions she asked Biden in an interview on July 3 were predetermined questions provided by the White House.
Following the host’s admittance, the Philadelphia-based station released a statement saying that Lawful-Sanders’ use of predetermined questions violated the station’s “practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” and was the reason for her termination.
While Kelly noted that the station may have terminated the host as a way to stand up to the Biden campaign by refusing to be its “mouthpiece,” she said the host appears to be a scapegoat as her case is likely not the first scenario media pundits have been fed predetermined questions by the Biden campaign.
“This is standard practice,” Kelly said on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“It seemed like the station made her the scapegoat. I find it hard to believe that they didn’t know – but maybe they didn’t, let’s take them at their word – but what I also found ironic is that they were so hard on Trump for saying immigration is going to cost Black and Hispanic jobs. And here we are, Biden actually caused a Black woman to lose her job and there’s barely any uproar,” Kelly added.
Kelly added that the story of the terminated radio host has “barely” been covered for the same reason that it appears to be that the “standard practice” of the Biden campaign is feeding questions beforehand to media outlets.
“This morning, I woke up early and I expected it to be a big outrage, thinking that it was going to be a number one issue. I’m barely finding this story at all. So I think people don’t want to touch it because it’s what they do. I think it’s going to come out that this is standard practice for the Biden administration,” Kelly said.
After the Philadelphia host admitted to being fed questions by the president’s team, Biden’s campaign announced that it would “discontinue” the practice of providing its own questions to media outlets to use when interviewing Biden.
To this, Kelly questioned why the campaign was compelled to discontinue the practice only when it was caught red-handed.
“Why does it take getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar to say it’s not a good idea? If we’re trying to improve confidence in the American people that Biden can do his job and that he isn’t suffering mental decline, why does it take getting caught that you’re pre-feeding questions,” Kelly pondered.
Watch the full interview:
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Christy Kelly” by The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.