Latest news with #Pager
New York Post
09-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Biden's handlers scrambled to change his personal number after journalist reached him on his cell, new book claims
Former President Joe Biden's team panicked after a reporter reached out to Biden on his personal cell for an interview and hurriedly changed the president's number, according to a new book released Tuesday. In '2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,' New York Times reporter Tyler Pager described how he reached out directly to Biden on his cell phone in March to see if he would be willing to be interviewed for the book, which he co-authored alongside reporters Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf. Biden reportedly picked up and said he would be available to speak with Pager the next day. He answered a few questions the following morning before he had to cut the conversation short to catch a train. Biden told Pager he had a 'very negative' view of President Donald Trump's second term and didn't 'see anything he's done that's been productive.' He also said he didn't regret dropping out of the 2024 race. 'No, not now. I don't spend a lot of time on regrets,' he told Pager before hanging up to get on the train. 3 US President Joe Biden takes a phone call as he walks to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 16, 2024. AFP via Getty Images After the first call, Pager was flooded with calls and text messages from Biden aides, who were 'freaking out' that he had obtained the president's personal number, he told podcast host Kara Swisher on Monday. After the interview, the reporter soon discovered his own number had been blocked by Biden's team. Two days later, Biden's number had been disconnected. 'This is why they lost,' Swisher said in response to Pager's story. A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 3 Tyler Pager shares details of a call with Joe Biden during the On with Kara Swisher podcast. On with Kara Swisher The book's revelations mirror those in others released this year about the 2024 election and the Biden presidency, which detail his alleged mental deterioration in office and how his inner circle fiercely protected him from the media. '2024' follows Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' released in May; 'Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,' by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes; and 'Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History' by Chris Whipple, both released in April. 3 Joe Biden seen leaving hot spot Nobu in Malibu after sushi dinner with son Hunter, grandson and others. 03 Jul 2025. APEX / MEGA Allegations that the president's team 'covered up' Biden's mental decline from the public while he was in office have spurred a House Oversight Committee probe into the matter, backed by the Trump administration. Nine former senior White House officials are expected to testify in the coming weeks. A representative for Biden declined to comment. A former Biden speechwriter balked at Pager in a post on X, writing, 'Is the implication here supposed to be that it's normal and important for any journalist to have the personal cell phone number of the president — and if you can't call POTUS directly whenever you'd like, it's a sign of insularity? Because that strikes me as… insane.'
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Joe Biden aides changed his phone number and scolded reporter for calling him about election loss, new book claims
Aides to former President Joe Biden reportedly changed his personal cellphone number and chewed out a reporter after he called the ex-commander-in-chief to get an interview. According to the book How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of The New York Times, and Isaac Arnsdorf of The Washington Post, Pager got hold of Biden's personal number and gave him a call in late March. 'Biden said he would be willing to speak for this book the next day,' the authors write. He answered the call the next morning and he criticized his predecessor and successor in the White House, President Donald Trump. 'I don't see anything he's done that's been productive,' said Biden. Asked about his thoughts on ending his 2024 re-election campaign, the former president said, 'No, not now. I don't spend a lot of time on regrets.' He then hung up as he was boarding an Amtrak train. It was then that Biden's aides called and texted Pager on repeated occasions. 'After the first call, furious Biden aides repeatedly called and texted' Pager, the authors state. Aides to the former president blocked Pager's number and removed Biden's number from use within two days. When they later tried to call the president a Verizon recording could be heard. 'The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service,' it stated. The incident follows reports that Biden had a tightly managed inner circle during his time in the White House and during the 2024 campaign. The authors noted that Trump has a more freewheeling style and, at times, takes calls from reporters. Pager wrote in The Times on Tuesday in a piece adapted from the book that, as he requested an interview with Biden on several occasions, his aides said the former president was working on a memoir that would conflict with his book. One aide screamed at him, according to Pager. 'Others texted furiously, trying to figure out how I had obtained Mr. Biden's phone number,' he writes. His follow-up calls went straight to a voicemail that just said, 'Joe' before the number was taken out of service.
New York Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
A White House Reporter on What It Takes to Cover Trump
When Tyler Pager joined The New York Times this year, it was something of a homecoming. In 2018, Mr. Pager, who was then completing a master's degree in comparative social policy at Oxford University, had been selected by Nicholas Kristof, a Times Opinion columnist, as the winner of his annual 'win a trip' contest. Mr. Pager earned the opportunity to join Mr. Kristof on a global reporting trip. Mr. Pager spent a little over a week visiting schools, homes and clinics across the Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world, and one in the midst of a violent civil conflict. He filed dispatches about the daily lives of the people there, which were published in The Times upon his return. Later that year, Mr. Pager interned on The Times's Metro desk, and then eventually joined Bloomberg as a national politics reporter. This February, after a four-year stint covering the Biden administration for The Washington Post, Mr. Pager returned to The Times as the newest addition to the team covering President Donald J. Trump and the White House. One day at a time, the team tackles the challenges of reporting on an administration that makes news at all hours, and on all platforms. 'I've always been drawn to the office of the American presidency, to understanding the power one individual in the country has,' said Mr. Pager, 29. In an interview from The Times's Washington office, Mr. Pager, who is a co-author of a forthcoming book on the 2024 presidential election, reflected on his start in journalism and a typical day on the job. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. How did you become interested in covering politics? When I was in journalism school at Northwestern, there was a program called 'Medill on the Hill' that allowed you to spend a quarter living and working in Washington. During my sophomore year of college, when Obama was president, I moved to D.C. for three months and covered Congress. I had a press pass to Capitol Hill. It gave me a close-up view of what it meant to be a political reporter. I got a better grasp on how much of what happens in Washington affects people all around the country, around the world. I've always been interested in how people try to get power, and then what they do with that power. You were 23 when you were hired to cover politics at Bloomberg. What was that like? One of the advantages of being a young campaign reporter is having no responsibilities in your personal life. I spent a vast majority of that time living on the road. I worked seven days a week. I threw myself into it. I was eager to learn. I added days to nearly every campaign trip to meet people and develop sources. It really paid off. It was definitely daunting to compete against people who were decades older than me and who had covered many presidential cycles. But I also think there were advantages to my naiveté about covering national politics. It was helpful to bring a fresh set of eyes to covering campaigns, which some reporters concede is an area where it is easy to get jaded. What does a typical day look like for you now? We have a 10:15 a.m. meeting every day that the whole New York Times White House team joins. Sometimes it's in person, sometimes it's over Zoom, and sometimes it's hybrid. Every week, one team member is on duty, and that means that person is primarily responsible for covering Donald Trump's events, speeches and travel. Those weeks when you're on duty are intense because you're responsible for watching and covering everything the president does. Wherever the president travels, you travel. When he goes to Palm Beach to spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, you also go to Palm Beach. A lot of what we learn about the president comes from speaking to people outside the White House. On any given day, I'm traveling for a Trump-related event or meeting sources. That's the thing I love most about my job: I wake up and often don't know what the day will bring. How do you balance investigative reporting with daily coverage? There is so much daily news that comes out of this White House, and we cover it relentlessly. But we also want to make sure we're not just covering what Trump is saying and doing every day. We want to ensure we are telling the full story of his presidency. That's where having these duty rotations helps. On a day when I'm not assigned a story or monitoring Trump, I'll whittle away at a longer-term story. It's all about balance. How do you set boundaries? We try to set boundaries as best we can. I just proposed to my girlfriend — I have a personal life. But it is a unique responsibility, and an honor, to be part of The Times, covering Donald Trump. I take that responsibility seriously. What are your goals for your beat? I want to make sure we have the most comprehensive, scoopiest coverage of the Trump White House. I want to make sure we're not just covering the day-to-day, but capturing the broader effect he is having on American life, institutions and the world. How do you relax? I'm a big runner and go with my friends and my fiancée. I play basketball as much as I can. Travel is my big hobby. I like to go for a long run wherever I am — it's the best way to see a new place, especially a city. I also love to try new restaurants, and covering politics and the White House has given me an incredible window into the culinary scene of so many places I would have most likely never visited. I track my favorite spots almost religiously on Google Maps.
