‘I’m Told I Should Start With AP,’ Biden Says During Rome Press Conference

President Joe Biden, who was elected nearly a year ago, hasn’t done a lot of press conferences, but when he does, he nearly always reveals that he has a list of preferred reporters on whom to call for queries.

During his only presser in Rome after the G20 summit on Sunday, Biden appeared to once again be using a “cheat sheet.”

“And now I’m happy to take some questions. And I’m told I should start with AP, Zeke Miller,” he said, according to a video posted by Fox News. “Zeke, you have a question?”

At G20 Summit, Joe Biden takes questions, but only from a pre-approved list of reporters. pic.twitter.com/KFcqw10YJ9

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 31, 2021

After the Q&A, Biden said, “Next question was from Jeff Mason — for Jeff Mason of Reuters.”

Biden then went to reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post and ABC News before running out the clock with a lengthy, rambling answer to the last question. The press conference ran just 26 minutes — pressers with former President Donald Trump would often run up to 90 minutes and more.

The president, who turns 79 this month, often divulges that he has been instructed to call on certain reporters, as he did after a June summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland.

“I’ll take your questions, and as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I’m going to call on,” Biden told reporters at the time. In April, he implied that he’s really not in charge of his own time. “This is the last question I’ll take, and I’m really gonna be in trouble,” he said.

Biden has also been photographed holding a chart with the names — and even the faces — of reporters, along with a number to signify in which order he should call on them.

In August, amid a disastrous pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan — which resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members and left hundreds of U.S. citizens stranded in the country — Biden dodged the media for days before addressing the nation. At the end of his speech, he said: “Ladies and gentlemen, they gave me a list here,” Biden said. “The first person I was instructed to call on [is] Kelly O’Donnell of NBC.”

Other times Biden simply refuses to take questions. After Biden held a brief event in August to update the nation on incoming Hurricane Ida,