As White House press secretary, it’s understandable that Karine Jean-Pierre’s job is to spin the truth favorable for her boss, President Joe Biden, but she took that task to a whole different level when she claimed that the 80-year-old president had actually “expressed sympathy” when he chuckled after talking about the story of two brothers being killed by fentanyl.
A reporter asked about Biden’s actions, which drew a sharp rebuke from the grief-stricken mother, at Thursday’s daily press briefing: “The mother is demanding an apology. And I’m wondering if he regretted how that came out.”
“So, you know, I want to be very careful here because this involves a mom, as you just stated, who lost two sons,” Jean-Pierre replied. “And when it comes to this President, I believe the American people knows who he is fundamentally, because he’s been around for some time, and they have watched him go through grief, they have watched him deal with really personal loss.”
REPORTER: “[Biden] mentioned a mother that had lost two of her sons to fentanyl. […] He seemed to laugh. The mother is demanding an apology…”
KJP: “He expressed sympathy for her last night. […] His words are being mischaracterized by someone who is regularly discredited.” pic.twitter.com/AIc0mMBmuH
— TallTanOne (@TallTanOne) March 3, 2023
Not only did she dredge up Biden losing his first wife and daughter in a car accident and his son Beau to cancer, but she also blamed U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Fox News for mischaracterizing his words and actions.
“And so, this is a President that understands that. He expressed sympathy for her last night. And his heart goes out to any person — any person who has to go through that type of trauma, that type of hurt,” Jean-Pierre continued. “I will say, his words are being mischaracterized by someone who is regularly discredited for things that she says that are, really, conspiracy theories. And those lies are being parroted by a certain network. And — and, you know — and, you know, I’ll just leave it there.”
Biden was speaking at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference on Wednesday when he mocked Greene, pointing to the GOP lawmaker blaming the open border for an explosion of fentanyl overdoses.
“I’ve read she was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons,” he said. “Well, the interesting thing: That fentanyl they took came during the last administration. Heh-heh.”
Yesterday Biden LAUGHED at a mother who tragically lost her two sons from a fentanyl overdose. This is how the ENTIRE administration treats the fentanyl crisis. They LAUGH as if it were a joke!!pic.twitter.com/4bh9lykaVj
— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) March 2, 2023
Jean-Pierre went on to claim that “conservative parents” of fentanyl victims “have blasted the congresswoman for these dishonest kinds of statements.”
“But again, our hearts go out to anyone who loses — who loses a person that they love. And this is something that you’ve heard from this president over and over again when — when that has occurred and has been presented to him,” she concluded.
Rebecca Kiessling, the mother of the two deceased boys, had a very different take.
“Just what a horrible human being,” she said of Biden, during an appearance on Fox News. “How can he sit there and joke about it? He thought he was with a room full of Democrats and he is among friends and they can yuck it up. What kind of a person does that?”
“He just doesn’t care. He is completely heartless and what about all the thousands — hundreds of thousands who lost their children under his administration,” she continued. “In his first year in office, after he lifted all of the border control that had been put in place, there was a 22% increase in fentanyl deaths.”
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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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