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President Joe Biden speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One in Madison, Wisconsin on July 5, 2024.
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CNN
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Radio host Andrea Lawfull Sanders has resigned from WURD radio after acknowledging that her post-debate interview with President Joe Biden included questions pre-selected by the Biden campaign, the station told CNN on Sunday.
“The interview featured pre-determined questions prepared by the White House, which is counter to our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” Sarah Lomax, president and CEO of the Philadelphia-based radio station, said in a statement posted on its website on Sunday. “As a result, Lawful Sanders and WURD Radio have agreed to end their relationship, effective immediately.”
WURD is Pennsylvania's only black-owned talk radio station. Lomax said the station prides itself on being an independent, trusted voice with a primarily black audience in Philadelphia, and that using pre-supplied questions “jeopardizes that credibility and is not something WURD Radio does or supports as a practice or official policy.”
“WURD Radio does not represent the Biden administration or any other administration,” she added.
“The Source” host Lawful Sanders met with Biden last week to ask him four questions about what's at stake in the election, Biden's record, his debate performance and what he'd say to undecided voters. In an interview with CNN's Victor Blackwell on Saturday, Sanders said the questions were among eight Biden aides recommended to him ahead of the interview.
“The questions were sent to me for approval, and I approved them,” she said.
The move added fuel to the furor that has been swirling around Biden's acumen since his lackluster performance in the first presidential debate, moderated by CNN, that has left many Democratic Party officials frustrated and concerned amid growing talk that Biden should not accept the party's nomination.
“If the White House is trying to demonstrate the president's vitality and energy right now, I don't see how they're doing that by sending the questions to the president before the interview so he knows what's going to happen,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell noted that both Lawful Sanders and Earl Ingram, host of Milwaukee's “Earl Ingram Show,” who interviewed the president this week, asked Biden “essentially the same question.”
A Biden campaign spokesman on Saturday did not deny that the campaign had provided the questions but said, “We did not make responding to these questions a condition of the interview.”
“It is not unusual for interviewees to share their favorite topics. These questions were related to the news of the day and the President was asked not only about his performance in this debate but also about what he has accomplished for Black Americans,” spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement.
The Biden campaign announced late Saturday that it would no longer suggest questions to interviewers.
“While interview hosts have previously been free to ask any question, they will now refrain from suggesting questions,” a source familiar with Biden's booking practices told CNN.
