Biden returning weekly ‘fireside chats’ to Americans after Trump ended tradition

Former president effectively ended weekly remarks within first year in office

Joe Biden will resume weekly presidential addresses after Donald Trump ended the tradition during his term.

On Saturday, the president will host a conversation with a woman named Michele Voelkert, who was laid off from her job at a San Francisco-based clothing company during the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Similar conversations and addresses will be broadcast weekly on YouTube and through White House social media channels, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday.

She said the president will revive the "fireside chat” tradition with the more-conversational, less-scripted feel of a podcast.

Read more: Live updates from the Biden administration

"This is a time-honoured tradition in the country of hearing from the president in this way," she said. “President Biden will continue that tradition, and we expect it to take on a variety of forms."

Franklin D Roosevelt's weekly "fireside chats" radio address sought to speak directly to Americans in the face of several crises to explain the administration's policy decisions. He delivered his first fireside chat on 12 March 1933 during the banking crisis.

The tradition began in earnest with Ronald Reagan and again with Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, who delivered remarks on YouTube nearly every Friday.

Mr Trump – who relied on his own massive audience on social media throughout his campaign and as a pulpit from the White House – continued the tradition airing pre-recorded statements posted to YouTube and on his social media channels within his first year in office. By the end of the year, he had effectively stopped.

Then-press secretary Sarah Sanders suggested that the format was "not used to its full potential".

"We’re looking at different ways that we can revamp that and make it where it’s more beneficial and gets more information out," she told reporters in November 2017.

Her successor Stephanie Grisham did not hold any press briefings. Regular briefings did not return until April 2020 with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The former president preferred facing members of the press in brief scrums and during combating, freewheeling remarks from the briefing room.