Black radio host who interviewed Biden leaves station after admitting campaign aides gave her pre-selected questions

Radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders has resigned from WURD Radio after 
admitting her post-debate interview with President Joe Biden included 
questions that were pre-selected by Biden’s campaign team, the station 
told CNN Sunday.

“The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White 
House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media 
outlet accountable to our listeners,” Sara Lomax, president and CEO of the 
Philadelphia-based station, announced in a statement posted Sunday on its 
website. “As a result, Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio have mutually 
agreed to part ways, effective immediately.”

WURD is Pennsylvania’s only Black-owned talk radio station. Lomax said the 
station prides itself on being an independent, trustworthy voice for its 
primary audience of Black Philadelphians and that using questions that 
were provided ahead of time “jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice 
that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official 
policy.”

“WURD Radio is not a mouthpiece for the Biden or any other 
Administration,” she added.

Lawful-Sanders, who hosted “The Source,” spoke with Biden last week and 
asked him four questions about what’s at stake in this election, his 
accomplishments, his debate performance and what he would say to hesitant 
voters. In an interview Saturday with CNN’s Victor Blackwell, she said 
those questions were part of eight that were recommended to her by Biden 
aides ahead of the interview.

“The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved them,” she said.

The move has further inflamed the maelstrom that has been swirling over 
Biden’s acuity since his lackluster performance in the first presidential 
debate, which was hosted by CNN. Biden’s debate performance has left many 
top Democrats wringing their hands in frustration and concern amid talk 
that he should not accept the party’s nomination.

“If the White House is trying now to prove the vim, vigor … of the 
president, I don’t know how they do that by sending questions first before 
the interview so that the president knows what’s coming,” said Blackwell.

Blackwell pointed out that both Lawful-Sanders and Earl Ingram, host of 
“The Earl Ingram Show” in Milwaukee who also interviewed the president 
this week, asked Biden “essentially the same questions.”

A Biden campaign spokesperson on Saturday did not deny the campaign 
provided questions, but said, “We do not condition interviews on 
acceptance of these questions.”

“It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics 
they would prefer. These questions were relevant to the news of the day — 
the president was asked about this debate performance as well as what he’d 
delivered for black Americans,” spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a 
statement.

The Biden campaign said later Saturday it will no longer suggest questions 
to interviewers.

“While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions 
they please, moving forward we will refrain from offering suggested 
questions,” a source familiar with the Biden booking operation told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/07/media/biden-interview-radio-host-
philadelphia/index.html