President Joe Biden called it a day at 11:24 a.m. on Election Day, with the White House saying there will be no more news coming out of the Oval Office.
The president has no public events on his schedule for the midterms, despite saying that the elections will determine the future of “democracy.”
Biden received his daily briefing at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and taped an interview with the D.L. Hughley Show about what the Biden-Harris administration has done for the black community, San Francisco Chronicle’s Shira Stein reported. The interview will air Tuesday afternoon.
Well, the White House has already called a lid as of 11:24am (meaning the press won’t see President Biden at all today).
— Shira Stein (@shiramstein) November 8, 2022
“We’re often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy,” Biden said in a speech Wednesday, delivered in front of Union Station in Washington, D.C. “But this year we are.” (RELATED: ‘Where Is Nancy?’: Biden Compares Attack On Paul Pelosi To January 6)
The president then dropped in on a virtual Democratic National Committee phone bank to thank staff and volunteers on Tuesday afternoon, with the lid still in place.
On Monday night, Biden held an event in Maryland, urging voters to choose Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore.
“Our lifetimes are going to be shaped by what happens the next year to three years. It’s going to shape what the next couple of decades look like, for real,” Biden said at the DNC grassroots rally.
The White House has also refused to confirm if Biden will be sticking to tradition by holding a press conference the day after the midterms. Every president since Bill Clinton has held a lengthy press conference the day immediately after the elections.
“As you know, you know, it takes some time at — in any administration to lay out what the schedule is going to be. I have been very clear: You’re going to hear from the president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.
“I’m just not going to get ahead of it. I’m just not going to lay out what the — what his day is going to specifically look like on — on Wednesday,” she added, refusing to say whether Biden will deliver a formal press conference.
Reporters have pressed the White House in recent months on whether Biden will hold another formal press conference, as his last formal conference with reporters was in January of 2022.