White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre seems to have her hands full following in the footsteps of her predecessor, as seen in Thursday’s chaotic press briefing where the president’s spokesperson once again showed that she is no match for Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy.
With President Biden set to address the nation later in the day on gun control after last week’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas, targeting the Second Amendment and trampling on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms in accordance with our inherent God-given right to self-defense, Doocy responded somewhat sarcastically to ask about Biden’s plan to fly to his beachside home in Delaware afterward.
“If the President thinks that Congress must act immediately to end this epidemic of gun violence, is he going to bring any of the key players from Capitol Hill to the beach with him tonight?” he asked.
Jean-Pierre was clearly not prepared to explain why the president was not staying in Washington to work with Congress, while touting that he has “beaten the gun lobby before” while serving in the Senate. This prompted Doocy to ask, “Then why not invite these lawmakers who maybe haven’t beat the gun lobby and say, “This is how it’s done?”
The best she could do was to say, “Do you want to go to the beach with the president tonight? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
In speaking of Biden’s coming speech, which was not expected to offer anything new on gun control — and didn’t — Doocy questioned whether this effort was being served up as a distraction to any number of problems the White House is facing.
“You guys at the White House had some very hard headlines this week about inflation and about baby formula. If there’s nothing new that you can point to in the speech tonight, did you just schedule it to get people talking about something else?” he asked.
Fox’s Peter Doocy: “The White House had some very hard headlines this week about inflation and about baby formula … Did you just schedule [tonight's speech] to get people talking about something else?”
Press Sec. Jean-Pierre: “People have died … We had 19 kids die in Uvalde.” pic.twitter.com/puGZQqh50w
— The Recount (@therecount) June 2, 2022
“People have died,” Jean-Pierre said. “People have died in the past couple of weeks, in particular. We had 19 kids die in Uvalde just recently of — a mass shooter came into their classroom and killed them, plus their two teachers. We had — we had people doing everyday things on a Saturday, like some of us do, go to the grocery store, and 10 of them were murdered. Just last night, in Tulsa, we’re learning of people who were, again, killed.”
(Of course, people are dying of gun violence every day in American cities like Chicago, which have some of the toughest gun laws in the nation.)
“So, this is not about politics. This is not about partisan politics here,” she added, saying Biden’s speech is a “call for action, to get Congress to move.”
…while Biden moves to his vacation home for the weekend.
“And, you know, it is — it is disheartening to hear that this could potentially or — if I’m hearing this right, could be used as a political tool,” Jean-Pierre said. “And that’s not what this is. This is not about partisan. This is about people’s lives.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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