Trump says media lobbed 'softball' questions to Biden at first news conference: 'Very sad to watch'

Former President Donald Trump criticized the media for lobbing "softball" questions to President Joe Biden during his first news conference.

"They were strange questions and they were asked in a very interesting way. It was like softballs, like you're throwing softballs up. And it's just a different world, nobody's seen anything like it," Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday night. "It's very sad to watch, actually. They're feeding him questions, they're easy questions."

While appearing on "The Ingraham Angle," Trump pointed out that Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy was not called on to ask a question during the presser. Trump noted, "I noticed Peter Doocy didn't get to ask a question today."

There were 25 reporters in attendance for Biden's first news conference, but no conservative-leaning media outlets were selected to ask questions. Meanwhile, PBS White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked a question that was very complimentary of President Biden, which was slammed by commentators for being too "partisan."

"And there could be no difficult questions, and they're ready to rip the microphone away if somebody did get a little bit testy," Trump continued. "Look, the whole thing is ridiculous. You know it and so do I."

Earlier this week, Trump previewed Biden's first news conference and predicted the media, which he often labeled "fake news," would treat the current president with kid gloves.

"I guess you're supposed to have a press conference on Thursday ... It's ridiculous the questions that are asked," Trump said Monday during an interview on Fox News' "The Faulkner Focus." "What did you have for dinner? What kind of ice cream do you have, as he walks out? They never talked to me that way. That's OK.

"It's the only way to get an honest word out because the press is really not a free press," Trump added. "The way you get the press out is with press conferences. He doesn't need them because the press protects him totally. If that were me that hasn't had a press conference for as long, with all the things going on, especially at the border, but really you have things as big as the border, we're not going to be energy independent within three months."

During an appearance on "The Truth with Lisa Boothe" podcast this week, Trump declared that "this is not a free press."

"This is a press that we have to be very, very smart to get around, but they don't cover bad things if it happens to be bad for Democrats," Trump said Monday. "It's pretty amazing. You take a look at some of the coverage and some of the travesty that's taking place at the border, and the coverage is not commensurate."

"If you look at NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course, CNN and MSNBC, and see — if you look at some of those networks — it's just not covered. It's covered so little," Trump said of the media's coverage of the border crisis. "It's amazing. And it's a massive story because it's going to destroy — it's going to destroy our country."

During Thursday's "The Ingraham Angle" interview, Trump also blasted the Biden's administration's handling of the immigration crisis and its relationship with China.

"What you're seeing now is inhumane," Trump said of the migrant facilities that are being overwhelmed by the surge of illegal immigrants at the border. "These children, these people … they're living on top of each other in squalor. This is squalor. That's why they won't allow the press to come in. We let the press come go in and we had much smaller numbers, frankly, because people couldn't come up.

"They're living in very dangerous conditions," Trump continued. "There's no testing for COVID-19. What's going on is just absolutely insane. It's a horrible situation. And everyone that's seen it, nobody's seen worse.

"If you get cameras inside some of those facilities, you would see children on top of children and you'd see filth," Trump said of migrant facilities, many of which are packed beyond capacity. "And you'd see things that you would not believe possible."

Trump advised the Biden administration to finish the border wall, which President Biden stopped construction on his first day in office.

Ingraham also asked about the tense summit last week in Alaska, where a Chinese official told U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, "Let me say here that in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength."

"That was an embarrassment," Trump said about Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi lecturing U.S. officials. "That was an absolute embarrassment to our country.

"China respected us. They never spoke to us the way they spoke to [the Biden] administration," Trump said.

"Nobody ever talked to my group that way. Nobody ever talked to me that way. I can tell you that," Trump stated. "And if they did, I would have doubled up the tariffs, which frankly, were something we probably should have done anyway."

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