WATCH: Biden Loses It Over Reporter’s Simple Debt Ceiling Question

President Joe Biden got testy with a reporter who asked if the White House had agreed to a deal with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on any specific areas in the federal budget for spending cuts.

“He’s got a specific answer, he got a specific answer,” Biden insisted. “You didn’t listen either, so why should I answer the question? We cut the deficit by $160 billion. Billion, B-I-L-L-I-O-N. Dollars.”

WATCH:

Deep into his third year as president, Biden has dodged interactions with members of the media, leading the editorial board of the Washington Post to publicly ask him Tuesday, “What are you afraid of?”

President Biden, who has held zero solo press conferences so far this year, appeared to acknowledge his strained relationship with the press as he joked at the White House Correspondents Dinner, “In a lot of ways, this dinner sums up my first two years in office. I’ll talk for 10 minutes, take zero questions and cheerfully walk away.”

On several recent occasions, the president has stood by as staffers shuffle reporters from the room following his carefully scripted remarks with world leaders or attempts to shift the political narrative during a period of uncertainty for the White House.

As his relationship with the Washington press has cooled, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has walked a tightrope to defend his interactions, at one point incredulously claiming that Biden had taken more questions from the media than Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump combined. After being called out, the White House communications office quietly amended the record to state that it was including “question-and-answer” sessions as part of her statement.

President Biden has seen his standing among voters decline in recent weeks, with the latest poll showing him trailing President Trump by seven points in a head-to-head matchup. Key demographics including independent and Black voters have soured on his reelection bid as Biden takes blame for the high inflation and interest rates plaguing the nation.