As Joe Biden embarked on a multi-issue mission to the Middle East, his first as president, one persistent problem for his administration was weighing heavily both on the minds of White House staff and the media: oil prices.
In recent days the issue of whether Mr Biden will directly call upon Saudi and Gulf leaders to ramp up production has become the latest example of the contradictory nature of the Biden White House press team. At the end of June the president stated directly that he would not ask regional leaders to increase production during a press conference in Madrid.
