With President Biden’s mysterious, sudden departure from Las Vegas last week after what his doctor insisted was just a positive Covid test and a week of isolation that culminated in dropping out of the 2024 campaign, Wednesday marked the first White House press briefing since July 15, so there were bound to be tense moments like Fox’s Peter Doocy alleging a “cover up” of Biden’s physical decline.
Things started innocently with Doocy asking Jean-Pierre how she was “doing with all of this”, to which Jean-Pierre jokingly huffed, “you care about how I feel?”
Doocy then asked if she’d “stick around for a potential President Harris administration”, but Jean-Pierre quipped she’s just trying to “get through the day”. She then remarked she hadn’t seem him “in awhile”, leaving Doocy to clap back “Well, uh, you guys haven’t had a press briefing since President Biden dropped out of the race, so —.”
Things immediately grew tense when Doocy cut to the chase: “It — it would seem that people in this White House knew that President Biden was slipping and it was hidden from the American people, so who ordered White House officials to cover up a declining President?”
Jean-Pierre claimed this was “a narrative that you love” and, from there, the cross-talk began with Jean-Pierre trying to shut Doocy down so she could filibuster. On the other side, Doocy pointed out “he did a press conference at NATO”, insisted he was “in it” to win, and had “all these things...to finish and then, 10 years later” he quits.
Jean-Pierre offered little in the way of an answer (click “expand”):
JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. Okay. You’re asking me like two multiple questions here. Let me — wait — wait. First of all, there’s been no cover up. I want to be very clear about that. I know that’s the narrative that you all want. Wait, no, no, no —
DOOCY: Not [inaudible].
JEAN-PIERRE: — you can’t — okay.
DOOCY: I’ve been — I’ve been with President Biden for five years.
JEAN-PIERRE: Are you going to let me answer the question?
DOOCY: Would you at least admit that the debate was not just a bad night?
JEAN-PIERRE: I — I — wait, can — I can I answer the question?
DOOCY: Yes.
JEAN-PIERRE: All right. Are you sure?
DOOCY: Yes.
JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. To your first question, it is not a cover up? I know that is the narrative that you all want. It is not. I’m going to say this again, and you’re — you’re gonna hear directly from the President. I hope you listen tonight. I think it’s going to be incredibly powerful and important. The Oval Office, presidents, as you know, when they make speeches from the Oval Office, it’s because there are important moments that they want to directly make sure that the American people hear from them and it’s obviously going to be done in prime time. I would listen to the President. And then, what I will say is that it is not easy making a decision that the President made on Sunday. It is just not. It is not. And as all you — have you reported, it is historic. It is unusual. This is not the norm and making a decision like that for someone who has been in public service for 54 years, U.S. Senator for 36, President to — Vice President to President Obama for eight, and now a first term as president himself. These are not easy decisions to make. They’re just not. And so the fact that he was able to make that decision in a selfless way. That’s admirable.
Doocy pivoted to Vice President Kamala Harris’s record on the border: “Does she still want to get rid of [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]?”
Jean-Pierre refused to say and instead blamed Republicans for the border crisis because not enough of them supported a deal negotiated between the White House and a select few senators.
Doocy asked a slightly different question: “As a partner, though, she’s been in charge of root causes of migration for years, she has never spoken to the Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens or the Border Patrol Chief before him, Raoul Ortiz. What should that tell us about her leadership style?”
Jean-Pierre scoffed at this question with the insistence she was tasked with addressing “root causes”, so she didn’t need to meet with them so much as engage in “diplomacy” with other countries.
Earlier in the briefing and after pre-written remarks Jean-Pierre gave about working for Biden, the AP’s Zeke Miller actually had a decent lead off question:
AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “If the President believes that it's best for the country that he not be in the Oval Office for another four years, how can you assure the American people that he's up to be in the office for the next six months?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 24, 2024
KJP: “Well, first, I would say is that — um —… pic.twitter.com/U5ffofYf3x
Miller followed up: “So, you’re saying that he believes that he’s capable of serving another four years, but he just doesn’t believe that he can win another four years?”
Jean-Pierre would only commit to telling him to wait for Biden’s Wednesday night speech.
CBS’s Nancy Cordes also gave it the ole college try and specifically whether Biden quitting was because of “his health or...his poll numbers”. Despite it straining credulity, Jean-Pierre vehemently said Biden quitting had “nothing to do with his health”.
It was the same case when ABC’s MaryAlice Parks asked whether Biden felt “bullied to leave the race”:
TWEET
Other than Doocy, the two most biting exchanges came thanks to CNN’s Kayla Tausche knocking Jean-Pierre for giving her first reactions to Biden quitting on ABC’s The View rather than a briefing and then The Washington Post’s Tyler Pager trying to have her admit Biden left because he felt he couldn’t “defeat Donald Trump in November”:
CNN’s @KaylaTausche: “And on the messaging to us, to the press corps, it's been nine days since there's been a briefing. The President obviously published his letter officially —”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 24, 2024
KJP: “Yeah?”
Tausche: “— on Sunday withdrawing from the race. Why go on television to make your… pic.twitter.com/VwXWkeBhRy
WashPost’s Tyler Pager: “Did the President exit the race because he didn't think he could defeat Donald Trump in November?
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 24, 2024
KJP: “I'm not going to get into — into specific details of his thoughts. I would say tune in tonight when he speaks directly to the American people. You'll… pic.twitter.com/C6iC1fkdsW
Along with Reuters’s Trevor Hunnicutt, NPR’s Deepa Shivaram shilled for Harris: “[G]iven the level of support the vice president has received from lawmakers, other Democrats, donors, the party in general, has the President expressed any sentiment that maybe he should have made his decision sooner and given her a longer timeline?”
The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey ended the briefing by pressing on Biden’s health:
WSJ’s Annie Linskey: “And can you say whether or not you'd be willing to have the President's doctor come to the podium, particularly given that he is — the President does intend to serve out his term and there have been a number of questions about, you know, his fitness for… pic.twitter.com/aSiJbucYIm
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 24, 2024
To see the relevant transcript from the July 24 briefing, click here.
Source link