Former President Donald Trump had a famously hostile relationship with the press, but the key word there is relationship—the man actually spoke to the media, engaged with them, and dealt with them in an unscripted and off-the-cuff fashion.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile—the man who was supposed to restore all of our democratic norms and bla bla bla etc—is barely permitted to blink at the press, let alone engage with them... and the press are getting angry:

Here was the situation that led to the complaint:

And here was the press report on the situation:

The entire editorial component of the US pool went immediately into Jen Psaki's office to register a formal complaint that no American reporters were recognized for questions in the president's Oval Office, and that wranglers loudly shouted over the president as he seemed to give an answer to Ed O'Keefe's question about the situation at the Southern Border. Biden's answer could not be heard over the shouting.

Psaki was unaware that the incident had occurred, and suggested that she was not in position to offer an immediate solution.

Your pooler requested a press conference. Psaki suggested the president takes questions several times a week.

I'm sorry, but the imagery here... it's just...

Just picture it: A bunch of journalists tromping into Jen Psaki's office to complain to her as if she were a homeroom teacher and Joe Biden's "wranglers" had bullied them out on the playground; Psaki, meanwhile, responds to their (perfectly reasonable) complaints by... just shrugging them off!

It's absolutely glorious.

The reality of the Biden presidency—a secretive, reclusive, barely-functioning administration held together by aggressive staffers and a press secretary who clearly doesn't care about the press at all—has to be sinking in on all of them.

Here were a few specific complaints:

• Ashley Parker, The Washington Post: "Worth noting that Biden ran for office promising to restore democracy after 4 years of Trump. But today it was the British leader, NOT the American one, who spotlighted a key tenet of a flourishing democracy — respect for a free press — by taking questions from his press corps."
• Stephen Miller, The Spectator: "Joe Biden has not taken or answered a single question regarding the border, FDA boosters getting shot down and the drone strike that killed 7 kids. His aides shout down reporters and herds them out of rooms, and the press complies with them."
• Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg News: "Biden aides shouted over the president in the Oval Office, trying to prevent a back-and-forth between @POTUS and the press corps."
• Andrew Restuccia, The Wall Street Journal: "A chaotic scene in the Oval Office today as Boris Johnson unexpectedly took questions from British reporters, and White House aides shouted over American reporters as we tried to ask Biden questions."
• Darren Grimes, GB News: "Boris Johnson took two questions from the British press, President Biden refused to take any, domestic or international. I can well imagine the headlines if Trump did the same, he'd be decried as an ‘authoritarian', a ‘fascist dictator' evading scrutiny."

Someone should tell them: Trump is still perfectly happy to take reporters' questions down at Mar-a-Lago!