How deep does the irrational loathing for White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre run at the Media Research Center? One writer had a bizarre meltdown because she danced in the briefing room (for a cause, with the cast of "A Different World").
By Terry Krepel Posted 7/11/2024
The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck spent his writeup of the April 1 White House press briefing complaining that press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed out how much right-wingers hate transgender people:
On Monday, the day-after-Easter White House press briefing began on a hacktastic note as the Associated Press reporter on duty asked about what could generously be described as hubbub surrounding Easter Sunday falling on March 31 and President Biden issuing a presidential proclamation for Sunday as Transgender Day of Visibility.
AP reporter Will Weissert could have asked about this in any number of productive ways, such as why was this tweeted from the White House’s main account, but not their Spanish-language profile, or why did Biden use only half of Genesis 1:27 to endorse transgenderism when the second, omitting portion would show God vehemently opposes it.
Instead, Weissert did this: “So, the criticism over the Transgender Day of Visibility, the White House said that the President wouldn’t abuse his faith for political purposes. Does the President think that’s what Republicans are doing on this?”
Despite having notes, Jean-Pierre still stumbled (see the video above) in expressing surprise at “the misinformation…out there”, explaining while Easter changes every year, Transgender Day of Visibility is always March 31.
Arguing the backlash was “misinformation done on purpose”, the Biden flack seemed to imply Biden — who celebrates transgenderism and believes they’re some of the bravest people he knows — was a real Christian while those who feel differently aren’t and thus possess “cruel, hateful, and dishonest rhetoric”:
Houck then fluffed his mancrush:
Fox’s Peter Doocy, in contrast, brought the heat and asked actual questions.
While he didn’t ask about the Transgender Day of Visibility, Doocy started with the disturbing development in the disturbing March 21 incident at the U.S.-Mexico (captured by our friend Jennie Taer of the New York Post): “Most of the border crossers accused of beating up Texas National Guardsmen in a riot last month were released on their own recognizance Sunday. How does that make people in this country any safer?”
Jean-Pierre told Doocy to speak with Departments of Homeland Security and Justice before retreating to her talking points praising the Border Patrol for having “act[ed] quickly” and attacking Republicans for “put[ting] politics ahead of the American people” by refusing to address the “challenge at the border” with the proposed Senate deal.
Apparently, pointing out how Houck and his fellow right-wingers despite the mere existence of transgender people doesn’t qualify as “actual questions” — only promoting right-wing narratives do.
For his writeup on the April 2 briefing, Houck set up another Doocy-gasm over his spouting of right-wing anti-immigration talking points:
For the second day in a row, the Associated Press opened the questioning Tuesday of the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre by lobbing a puke-tastic softball so she could bash Donald Trump. This time, it was the insane claim that illegal immigration makes America...well, great. And, in contrast to all this, Fox’s Peter Doocy stood alone on the border crisis.
AP White House reporter Will Weissert had the hot take on Monday about Sunday’s Transgender Day of Visibility, but it was his colleague Josh Boak who this time opened the Jean-Pierre portion by inviting her to explain why illegal immigration has helped create a roaring American economy.
[...]
Adding there’s been “clearly awful rhetoric from the other side”, Jean-Pierre’s lengthy word salad also conflated illegal immigration with legal immigration as she proclaimed Biden and his regime “know immigrants strengthen our country and our economy” and said Biden believes we need “an economy that works for everyone”, presumably including illegals.
Doocy actually set the tone before Boak and Jean-Pierre as he asked John Kirby this: “John, there’s another case of somebody who was in this country illegally allegedly murdering the young woman, this time in Michigan. Her name was Ruby Garcia. Donald Trump is out there now calling this Biden’s border bloodbath. What do you call it?
Houck then cheered Doocy playing partisan whataboutism with Trump’s “bloodbath” remark:
Having sat through these softballs, Doocy dropped a devastating receipt: “So, when Donald Trump is talking about a bloodbath, it is violent rhetoric. What was it when Joe Biden said in 2020, we — ‘what we can’t let happen is let this primary become a negative bloodbath’?”
Try and follow this mess of an answer from Jean-Pierre: “So, I’m going to be really mindful and careful about Donald Trump, but if you read — because he is a — he is a candidate — we’re talking about the 2024 election. You should read — hit — what he said in its context, so you got to read what he said in context.”
Doocy clapped back with a helping of attitude: “Bloodbath is an ugly word when Trump uses it. What is it when Biden uses it?”
Jean-Pierre instructed Doocy that he should have “asked me the question in context of what it was said — right — and what the — what it was said when he said that — right — in his remarks in his speech, right?”
Thus, she argued, he was “being disingenuous.”
An incredulous Doocy returned fire then showed respect by letting Jean-Pierre drone on. Her impeccably lazy defense as to why Joe Biden is allowed to use the word “bloodbath” but Donald Trump can’t?
But Doocy is, in fact, a disingenuous reporter — but as long as he keeps slavishly pushing right-wing narratives, Houck will never criticize him.
Houck served up even more Doocy-gasming in his writeup of the April 3 briefing:
Given Wednesday’s White House press briefing ran less than 40 minutes, its abbreviated state largely made it uneventful aside from a truly comical Doocy Time having left the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre even more incoherent than usual and, on the other end of the spectrum, taxpayer-funded National Public Radio’s (NPR) Asma Khalid pled for Israel to suffer “consequences” for its war against Hamas.
Fox’s Peter Doocy first question dealt with a little-discussed but important topic to national security: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
“[S]o, you guys started draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try and help with ‘the Putin Price Hike’ a few years ago. Said You were going to refill it. But now it doesn’t seem like that’s happening. Why,” he asked.
[...]
Doocy’s remaining time focused on the Biden border crisis, starting with this query that left Jean-Pierre playing dumb and asking for more information: “And why isn’t federal immigration law tougher on border crossers who come here and are accused of serious crimes?”
Given Jean-Pierre’s befuddlement, Doocy explained more: “There’s this story in New York — an eight-person crew of border crossers found with drugs and guns. Six of them now are out on bail. Does President Biden think policies like that are making the country safer?”
Jean-Pierre ducked, citing this example as being “an active case, so don’t want to comment on an active case, but anyone found guilty — and we’ve been very clear about that — anyone found guilty of a crime should be held accountable” and that the Biden regime has “been very, very clear about that.”
Doocy last question touched on the left’s pro-crime tendencies: “So, more generally then, do you guys think that some big cities in this country have liberal DAs that are too soft on crime?”
If Doocy isn’t already paying Houck to be his PR person, he should formalize the arrangement and and make it clear that his Doocy-gasming is part of the job.
Houck scaled back his Doocy-gasming and focused on another biased right-wing reporter at the April 4 press briefing:
Near the end of a tense White House press briefing Thursday dominated by questions about Israel, the New York Post’s Steven Nelson drew terse replies from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over his recent reporting on powerful White House aide Anthony Bernal being accused of “bull[ying] and verbally sexually harass[ing] colleagues over more than a decade.”
Not only has Bernal has vehemently denied the allegations in Nelson’s heavily-sourced story, but Chief of Staff Jeff Zients went on the record to defend him and Bernal could be viewed as unfirable given he’s so close to First Lady Jill Biden she’s reportedly called him her work spouse.
[...]
Jean-Pierre stepped in before he could finish with the well-known declaration from Biden in 2021 that he’d fire on the spot anyone who mistreats a colleague, scoffing that she doesn’t “know who your sources are, so....I can’t speak to that” since “they’re blind sources.”
Adding she won’t ever speak about “personnel investigations”, she sang Bernal’s praises as someone she’s “known...for more than a decade” and counts him as both “a friend” and “a colleague” she’s “worked closely with”.
To Nelson’s credit, he eventually stepped in despite Jean-Pierre’s continued filibustering: “I just gotta press you on this because the President said he would fire people for disrespecting colleagues and there’s no investigation.”
Jean-Pierre continued to screech and make Nelson’s point, insisting this is all “unfounded” claims.
Note that Houck buried the fact that Nelson’s “heavily sourced” story is all anonymous sources, which Houck’s employer tells us not to trust (when they make claims that make conservatives look bad, anyway). Houck did make sure to praise a different Fox employee for pushing right-wing narratives:
A few minutes before Nelson, the Fox Business Network’s Grady Trimble called out the Biden administration’s failed attempts to make fetch happen and force Americans to buy electric vehicles (EVs). Jean-Pierre, appearing prepared for the question threw out a littany of numbers in attempt to make it seem like EVs are both afforable and exploding in popularity:
Thankfully, Trimble followed up on this gobbledygook: “So, is it realistic to go from about seven or eight percent of sales to 50 percent of sales in eight years if the automakers themselves are cutting back pro — on production?”
It was here the Jean-Pierre we’ve come to know emerged as she fumbled through with claims “that— that U.S. manu — U.S. manufacturing jobs have increased” and “[j]obs have indeed increase [sic] and when you see a boom like this, that means you need auto workers, right? It can’t happen on its own…and we want to see a manufacturing industry that’s for the future of this — of this country”.
Trimble’s other subject concerned President Biden’s hypocrisy on Chinese-owned TikTok: “If President Biden is concerned enough about TikTok to bring it up on a call with the president of China, why is he and why is the Vice President — why are they still making videos for TikTok?”
Though Jean-Pierre isn’t adept at many things, one thing she does know what to do is what she did here: punt to the reelection campaign.
Houck devoted attention to another Fox News reporter in his writeup of the April 9 briefing:
After a White House press briefing dominated Tuesday by questions about foreign policy (Israel, Japan, and even Haiti to name a few) for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, little time was left over for Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Jacqui Heinrich was back in the Fox News Channel seat and she pressed Jean-Pierre over new anti-Israel rhetoric from the radical Islamists who populate Dearborn, Michigan and then President Biden appearing to claim Americans in the Republican Party are murderers.
“A couple days ago in Deaborn, there were protesters chanting, ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel.’ Does the President condemn that,” Heinrich asked, cutting right to the chase.
When Jean-Pierre said “yes”, Heinrich drilled down: “Is the President at all concerned that Dearborn is becoming – is facing a risk of becoming a hotbed of any sort of homegrown threats?”
Jean-Pierre somehow didn’t invoke Islamophobia and instead replied she didn’t “have any intelligence to share with you on that”, but said it’s “something that we’re always very vigilant about”.
Oof. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Jean-Pierre is forced to clean this up in a few days.
After some sputtering along about how the Biden regime “will condemn any – any of violent rhetoric” and they’ve been “very consistent”, Heinrich had one more missive concerning whether Biden himself would speak publicly about it: “Should we see a – should we expect a statement from the President on that? It was a pretty significant display.”
Jean-Pierre shrugged it off as any Press Secretary should do (if they had any self-worth): “I mean, you’re hearing from me. I think that’s important.”
For the April 11 briefing, Houck obsessed over a clunky answer from Jean-Pierre:
Given the fact that much of Thursday’s news cycles were dominated by the death of O.J. Simpson, it shouldn’t have been that surprising Simpson was invoked during the White House press briefing. Somehow, the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had a cringeworthy answer.
The Associated Press’s Darlene Superville has always been a Biden hack, so she probably thought she was helping the White House out with her third question being about the corrupt and disgraced former NFL player (after two about Israel): “Was there any reaction from the President to O.J. Simpson’s death? Do you know if they ever crossed paths? If so, how? When?”
Setting aside the unintentionally somewhat on-the-nose “crossed paths” phrase, Jean-Pierre’s answer showed complete callousness to the family of those many believe Simpson killed, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
“So, I’ll say this,” Jean-Pierre began (as she often does) before adding “[o]ur thoughts are with — with his families during this difficult time — obviously, with his family and loved ones.”
Yeeesh. Based on the creative litany of responses to a video tweet of the exchange, the public certainly has been left scratching its head.
That “video tweet” was made by Houck himself, reminding us once again that he get paid to spew hate at Jean-Pierre. Indeed, so obsessed with Houck with that question that he had to do a second post on other happenings — specifically, slobbering over Fox employees advancing right-wing narratives — during that briefing:
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went solo for Thursday’s White House press briefing, so she shouldered all the questions, including the Middle East and the economy. It was on this latter topic where she was put through the gauntlet by Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich and Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence as they called out the administration’s channeling of Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber in denying persistently high inflation.
Lawrence cut to the chase with a brutal inflation fact-check: “[Y]esterday in the Rose Garden, the President said that when he came into office, inflation was skyrocketing, but it was 1.4 percent in January of 2021 and that was the 11th consecutive month at that time under two percent. So, it was the President misleading Americans?”
Unsurprisingly, Jean-Pierre refused to engage and instead doubled down about inflation having taken off because, when Biden took office, the country was “a pandemic” that “was closing down businesses, closing down schools, uh, and so, it was drastically disrupting the supply chain” followed by the war in Ukraine.
Lawrence didn’t buy it: “But the President didn’t say the supply chain was being disrupted. He said inflation was skyrocketing.”
[...]
Heinrich cited a report in Politico from former Chief of Staff Ron Klain in which he allegedly said President Biden needs to focus more on soaring prices Americans are paying than fixing bridges.
After bringing that up, Heinrich tied it to the lack of a White House statement on the latest Producer Price Index (PPI): “We didn’t get any statement today on the PPI index. You know, why aren’t we hearing more from the White House about the issues that people are facing at grocery stores and paying rent?”
Jean-Pierre’s prepared answer cited the State of the Union as proof Biden has “made very clear about what he understands what the Americans are facing and he’s talked at almost every — every event that he’s had….about lowering costs”.
There was enough Fox News narrative-pushing during the briefing that Houck didn’t even need Peter Doocy. Not that it will stop him from mancrushing over Doocy the next time he appears in the White House briefing room, of course.
Houck finally conceded that Doocy is acting “adversarial” in White House press briefings — though he still won’t concede that Doocy is a right-wing hack — in his Doocy-fluffing writeup of the April 15 briefing:
With President Biden on the road for the next few days, the White House press corps had to get their hardballs in while they could on Monday. Fox’s Peter Doocy, as always, had the adversarial questions the rest wouldn’t ask. This time, he went around and around with John Kirby over Iran predictably not being intimidated by President Biden’s simple demand to “don’t” fire missiles and drones at Israel.
“John, has President Biden considered maybe beefing up the public Iran posture to be more than just one word,” Doocy began, to which Kirby said amid cross-talk they should “talk about what we did.”
“[H]e said ‘don’t’ and they did it anyway. So, now what,” he asked.
Doocy largely let Kirby drone on for over a minute about how Biden’s “don’t” plea was actually a smashing success[.]
[...]
Doocy then pivoted to the ongoing issue (raised repeatedly, such as here, here, here, here, here, and here by his colleague, Jacqui Heinrich) of the U.S. freezing Iranian assets: “Now that we know that the Iranians do not listen to President Biden’s public warnings, Is there any regret here about unfreezing billions of dollars for Iranian leaders during the President’s administration?”
Kirby played dumb, wondering “what unfreezing are you talking about” and thus lead to more back-and-forth between the two with Kirby admitting he did know what Doocy was referring to and, rest assured, the administration was monitoring the haul to make sure it didn’t end up in the wrong hands
[...]
Doocy Time wrapped with a question about why in the world did Biden leave for Delaware then come back to the White House since, in crises past, Biden wouldn’t change plans and the press team would argue Biden “can be the President from anywhere.”
Kirby didn’t engaged except to claim he came back because “shortly after arriving — we got better, firmer intelligence and information about the — the specific timing of what we expected to be this Iranian attack”.
In his writeup of the April 19 briefing, Houck cheered Doocy ranting at Jean-Pierre over something President Biden said:
In case you missed it from Friday, Fox’s Peter Doocy clashed with the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre during the White House press briefing when Doocy called out the President for falsely claiming his uncle not only died during World War II, but was cannibalized in Papua New Guinea by blood-thirsty natives. Jean-Pierre ducked, attacking Doocy and invoking the dubious “suckers” and “losers” tall tale about Donald Trump from The Atlantic.
Doocy respectfully cut to the case: “Why is President Biden saying that his Uncle Bosie was eaten by cannibals?”
Jean-Pierre complained she already “answered this question yesterday” and “your network” even played “clips….about me answering this question” before claiming Doocy saw for himself if he was on the trip to Scranton that Biden “had an emotional and, um, I think a symbolic moment” in taking “an opportunity, as President, to honor his uncle’s service in uniform.”
“He had an opportunity…to speak to the bravery of his uncle and not just his uncle, but many U.S. service members that put their lives on the line on behalf of this country,” she added, with his uncle Ambrose Finneagan serving as an example “for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those — we stand — we sent to war and take care of them and their families when they come home.”
She then made it about Trump
[A]s he iterated, the last thing American veterans are — or the last thing Americans should be called or suckers and losers and — and that is — those types of words should not come from a commander in chief, as we have in the past. And we should actually be lifting up our American veterans and honoring them and that’s what you saw from this President.
Doocy said he felt the same about how veterans should be treated and that “Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan was a war hero, but the Pentagon says, for unknown reasons, the plane was forced to ditch in the ocean and both engines failed at low out — altitude.”
He then ripped Biden for why then did he have to lie when his uncle was already a war hero: “Why is President Biden saying he was shot down? There’s no evidence of that. And why is he saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals? That’s a bad way to go.”
Instead of conceding Biden lied or moving on, Jean-Pierre attacked Doocy by alleging he’s disrespectful of the dead: “[W]e should not make jokes about this.”
Doocy clapped back before letting Jean-Pierre drone on: “[I]t’s not. The President — Biden said with his own lips he was eaten by cannibals.”
“[N]o, no, I mean, your — your last line. It’s — it’s for a laugh. It’s for a funny — funny statement and he takes this very seriously. His uncle who served and protected this country lost his life serving and that should matter,” Jean-Pierre whined.
Houck unsurprisingly gave Doocy a pass for redundantly harping on something that had already been discussed the day before (a briefing that, curiously, Houck failed to write about). He found another hostile right-wing reporter to bash Jean-Pierre in a April 26 post hyperbolically headlined “HOT DAMN”:
The great Steven Nelson of the New York Post has always had great questions at White House press briefings and even went over half a year without being called on by the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre, so it won’t be entirely shocking when it happens again thanks to his bombshell Friday morning piece about what the headline dubbed a “failed White House coup to oust” Jean-Pierre.
While it was surprising to see Nelson report the depths to which even senior White House officials were behind this, what was unsurprising was it failed due to Jean-Pierre’s stubborness that one source described as “come hell or high water” to stay through the election and the reality that a black lesbian axed by white people would make her a martyr.
Nelson began by explaining “[t]op aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall” to oust her as even they had seen she “developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings” and thus provided “a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden”.
[...]
According to one source, this gentler approach was deployed because they “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will” and “afraid of what” the DEI crowd were “going to say” if they kicked her out.
A source had some brutal words for their colleague, which has been plainly obvious to those in reality, ripping Jean-Pierre for lacking “an understanding of the issues and she reads the book [binder] word-for-word” while simultaneously not “hav[ing] a grasp of the issues and doesn’t spend the time to learn.”
The source was correct in pointing out predecessor Jen Psaki would remark during briefings about studying up on issues beforehand (and we would add Kayleigh McEnany also did in sharing facts she learned from experts and fellow White House officials).
Houck offered no reason to trust anonymous sources cited by a biased reporter for a right-wing rag. And the only reason Houck thinks Nelson is “great” is because of that pronounced right-wing bias.
Jean-Pierre dances, MRC melts down
While there may not have been enough briefings for Houck to spew hate at Jean-Pierre over in the middle of April, that role was filled by Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, who was outraged that she was [checks notes] singing and dancing during one briefing. Mandelburg played an out-of-context clip of Jean-Pierre in her hate-filled April 16 “Woke of the Weak” podcast, huffing that “this is apparently normal behavior from the White House, even when a war is percolating in the Middle East.” She failed to mention that Jean-Pierre was actually singing the theme song from ’80s sitcom “A Different World” was and joined by cast members from the show, who happened to be visiting the White House that day as part of its tour of historically Black colleges to raise money for scholarships.
If that wasn’t enough, Mandelburg went low-rated far-right channel One America News to rage further about it. Host Alison Steinberg whined, “Oooh, this is just nauseating,” and Mandelburg ranted in agreement:
You know, I love to have a good time, have a fun time, but there’s a time and a place for that, and work place is not really the place for that. And seeing that video really — if they were really great at their job, if Karine Jean-Pierre was an amazing press secretary and just did a great job and was really clear on what the Biden administration was doing, that would be one thing. I would give her a little bit of slack. But the fact that she really never has any clue what is going on and just, again, regurgitates the same leftist talking points that she reads from her little binder, it goes to show that clearly they need to do a little more studying.
When has the MRC ever given slack to any press secretary for a Democratic president? Never, as far as we can recall. And we don’t recall Mandelburg being angry that Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany regurgitated right-wing talking points from her little binder.
Again, neither Mandelburg nor Steinberg mentioned the pertinent fact that Jean-Pierre was joined by the cast of “A Different World” raising money for HBCU scholarships. It should also be noted that even Houck — a rabid hater of Jean-Pierre — didn’t find this remarkable enough to comment on during his nasty briefing writeups.
