President Obama’s year-end news conference comes on the heels of an action-packed news week, including a breakthrough with Cuba and elevated tension with North Korea.
As usual, all of the cable news networks have been fixated on the news conference. MSNBC is airing a special report with Chris Matthews.
NBC News will provide a Special Report with Chuck Todd and Senior White House Correspondent Chris Jansing providing insight from D.C. Over on CBS, Anthony Mason is anchoring from New York with Major Garrett at the White House and Bob Schieffer in Washington.
On ABC, George Stephanopoulos leads a special report from New York and Jonathan Karl report from the White House with Pierre Thomas from Washington. We will provide information on the coverage by other networks as we receive it.
After an opening statement, President Obama revealed that his “naughty or nice” list will determine who gets to ask questions.
The first question went to Carrie Budoff Brown of Politico, who asked about cyber attacks.
President Obama made it clear he isn’t happy with Sony pulling “The Interview” and said the United States “will respond” to North Korea. He also joked about Seth Rogen and James “Flacco.” Obama went on to ask Budoff Brown about her upcoming move to Europe.
The second question goes to Cheryl Bolen of Bloomberg. Up third, Julie Pace from the AP asked about Cuba and whether or not North Korea was acting with another country. The fourth question goes to Lesley Clark of McClatchy Newspapers. “World news Tonight” anchor David Muir just received a shout out from the president.
The fifth question goes to Roberta Rampton of Reuters. Colleen McCain Nelson was up next, asking about executive actions. Juliet Eilperin gets the next question, asking about the Keystone pipeline. April Ryan of Urban Radio Networks gets the last question, asking about the “state of black America.”
It appears only women will be allowed to ask questions, forcing us to assume that all the male reporters in D.C. were “naughty” in Obama’s eyes.
Time political reporter Zeke Miller sent the following Tweet regarding the all-women presser.
There are no definitive records of questioners in previous administrations, but everyone at the WH is pretty sure this is historic.
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) December 19, 2014