With no White House press briefing since October 30, Thursday’s briefing was the first since Tuesday’s general election and, with the massive red wave yielding a Trump presidency and possibly a Republican Congress, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a room of reporters (ostensibly most being supporters) full of questions about the administration’s reaction to this thorough rebuke.
Starting at the end of the briefing, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich patiently sat and heard Jean-Pierre’s only definitive excuse be that pandemic fallout was why Democrats were shellacked, so she had enough.
After a follow-up to a question from The Washington Post’s Matt Viser about any chance President Biden would pardon son Hunter, Heinrich read a viral tweet from Congressman Richie Torres (D-NY) before wondering: “[I]s the administration, campaign, the Democratic Party, looking at the pandemic as the cause rather than — is that easier than looking in the mirror?”
Jean-Pierre doubled down on “respecting” what voters decided and that “incumbents” across the Group of Seven countries have “pretty consistently” been blamed for the pandemic upheavals. A long, winding word salad later, Heinrich was more direct:
But is that examination happening at all inside, though?…[T]his administration’s message to millions of Americans that they’re going to wake up the day after the election if Trump won and have their rights stripped away, that democracy would crumble and the President said today we’re going to be okay. So how do — how do you square that?
As shown in the above video, Jean-Pierre offered a non-committal answer and promise for a peaceful transition, which led Heinrich to interject: “So, you’re saying that leading by example is the message to people who are fearful based on what the messaging was about the stakes of what would happen?”
Jean-Pierre wasn’t amused and told Heinrich she was “just twisting everything around and that’s really unfair” since she had “been standing here trying to be very respectful to what happened the last two nights — uh — two nights ago, being respectful.”
Rewinding back to the beginning, things started off easy and almost like a group therapy session. The AP’s Zeke Miller twice asked whether Biden believes he feels any responsibility or “take any accountability for his party’s defeat,” including here:
AP’s @ZekeJMiller: “[W]hen the President spoke in a little bit ago, one thing he did not do was take any accountability for his party’s defeat on Tuesday night. Does he feel any sense of responsibility for the outcome? Does he feel he would have — he should have done things… pic.twitter.com/qmOEDuVAPi
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
His third question was a silly softball of sadness, wondering if Biden “feel[s] like he has let down America’s allies and partners that now someone with a very different worldview than him will now be in the Oval Office.”
CBS’s Nancy Cordes kept pressing on this “regrets” angle:
CBS’s @NancyCordes: “Does the President have any regrets about when he chose to leave the race or any regrets about deciding to run for a second term?”
KJP: “Um — so — look — um — the President is very proud of what he was able to accomplish. He was very proud and when he made… pic.twitter.com/tp77SSuRim
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
ABC’s Selina Wang followed with an important line of questioning that Jean-Pierre tellingly didn’t give a firm answer to:
ABC’s @SelinaWangTV: “Does President Biden believe he could have won if he stayed in this race?”
KJP: “President Biden believes that he made the right decision when he decided to step aside — uh — and — uh — immediately endorsed the Vice President and you saw the party come… pic.twitter.com/zGHrGNdGlV
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
Reuters’s Jeff Mason made it even more personal for Jean-Pierre and her aides, noting the “criticism in the last couple of days directly addressed at President Biden for some of the questions that have already been asked — running in the first place or not stepping aside faster.”
“Some of that criticism has also been directed at his team and the advisors around him for advising him to do what he did. Can you address that criticism,” he wondered.
Interestingly, Jean-Pierre seemed to tout Biden’s rise to the presidency as a backdoor way of saying yes to previous questions about whether Biden would have won this time:
CNN’s Kayla Tausche snuffed out this rosy picture about voters having spent years clamoring for a second Biden term:
CNN’s @KaylaTausche: “You talked about the influence that the 2022 midterms had on the President’s thinking to decide to run for reelection. But, around that time in 2023, polls showed that roughly 80 percent of Americans believed at that time that the President was too old to… pic.twitter.com/HAdUQWpNuQ
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
In a follow-up, she hit the nail on the head: “But around that time in 2023, the President’s team also very firmly encouraged other rising stars, luminaries in the party, people who had participated in the primaries in the 2020 cycle — um — to rally behind the President and not to consider their own ambitions. Was that the wrong call?”
After Tausche, it felt like a voicing of laments by liberal reporters wondering what will happen to leftist priorities when Trump takes office (click “expand”):
SWAPNA VENUGOPAL RAMASWAMY [USA Today]: So, does the President believe that he could have beat Donald Trump?
(….)
RAMASWAMY: So, Republicans have threatened to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. Does the White House have any plans to take any actions to safeguard some of the measures such as, you know, clean energy investments, for instance?
(….)
JON DECKER [Gray TV]: One of the issues debated, discussed quite a bit during the course of the campaign was the issue of reproductive rights. Is the White House, President concerned that with a Republican in the White House, Republicans controlling the Senate, a super conservative majority on Supreme Court at the very least — we don’t know what’s going to happen in the House — that reproductive freedoms for women will be rolled back?
(….)
KEN THOMAS [Wall Street Journal]: President-elect Trump has heard from a number of world leaders, uh, since the election. Xi, Macon, Zelenskyy, Netanyahu. What is the level of concern that Trump may try to conduct foreign policy in this transition period and — and get in the way of some of the President’s foreign policy [inaudible]?
(….)
THOMAS: And does the President see this election as a setback to some of the efforts he’s been making to try to get the hostages released to try to, you know, bring peace to — to Gaza?
(….)
DANNY KEMP [AFP]: Does President Biden fear for Ukraine’s future after Donald Trump’s victory given that he’s — you know, talks about cutting aid, about pushing through a peace deal?
(….)
KEMP: Vladimir Putin said today he was ready to talk to Donald Trump. Would that be a good idea?
(….)
ANITA POWELL [Voice of America]: And would [inaudible] with the next administration may be finalizing the deal and getting the credit for that, if you wind it up?
(….)
POWELL: And then, at APAC and at the G-20, what is the President’s message to China and the other 19 members of the G20, especially vis-a-viv climate change, which, you know, President Trump has a very different policy?
(….)
GERREN KEITH GAYNOR [theGrio]: Considering the outcome of the election, what is the White House’s message to black and brown communities, LGBTQ Americans who are fearful of the vulnerabilities of what Trump administration given some policy proposals like eliminating DEI mechanisms, banning LGBTQ — bans in healthcare and classrooms and how is the — is the president thinking about ways he can advance or preserve civil rights — uh — his agenda in these final days?
While on the subject of the ridiculous, Time magazine’s Brian Bennett had this:
IRONY ALERT!
Time’s Brian Bennett: “You know, Donald Trump had classified documents at Mar a Lago that he did not secure. Does the President have concerns about information being given to Donald Trump in the next 74 days as part of the transition that Donald Trump would not take… pic.twitter.com/Vcoz1vf7Sl
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
Wang’s ABC colleague Karen Travers had this interesting question many liberals must be thinking fearing now that America’s elected a man they find so odious:
ABC’s @KarenTravers: “We’ve heard the President say recently and the summer that the — former President Trump’s vision for America is dark and it’s not who we are. But given the results on Tuesday night, does he think he misjudged where the country is right now?”
KJP: “Look, the… pic.twitter.com/025vpfVH7O
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
Behind Heinrich, the questions of the briefing came via NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez. He started with this stinging probe about Biden’s white-hot descriptions of Donald Trump as a threat to democracy:
NBC’s @GabeGutierrez: “Just a little bit earlier, you said that the White House’s view when it came to reproductive rights did not change from pre- and post-election. The President repeatedly referred to Donald Trump as a threat to democracy over and over again, and this morning… pic.twitter.com/erQByf8SWq
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
After a follow-up and unrelated question, he concluded by invoking the viral tweet:
NBC’s @GabeGutierrez: “Senator Bernie Sanders — he says that — he has suggested that party leadership abandoned the working class. What’s the White House response to that?”
KJP: “I mean, look, obviously we respect Senator Sanders. He’s been a partner with us in many of the… pic.twitter.com/OPKxapupq4
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
Prior to Heinrich, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann was up and tried again on Gutierrez’s questions:
.@PhilipWegmann: “Does the President still stand by his description of the former president, now president-elect, as an existential threat to democracy?”
KJP: “I don’t have anything else to share beyond what I said. The President believes, when he said it at the time, he… pic.twitter.com/5NZ1QQWeYY
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 7, 2024
Wegmann also brought up concerns the federal bureaucracy could already be working to undermine a second Trump administration (click “expand”):
WEGMANN: What is President Biden’s message to career civil servants who will carry over into the next administration. Does President Biden believe that they should be fully cooperative as the next president seeks to put his agenda into action?
JEAN-PIERRE: Fully cooperative?
WEGMANN: Not slow things down.
JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, no. Absolutely, no.
WEGMANN: Republicans are voicing a lot of frustration.
JEAN-PIERRE: We’re — we’re saying that we want a good, a peaceful transition. We want an effective, efficient transition. That’s what we’re saying, and that’s in the President’s administration — career, political — uh — we want to make sure that that transition happens in an orderly way — uh — and we’re not looking to slow down anything. We want it to happen — to happen. That’s what the American people deserve. This is not political here, folks. This is not about politics. This is about the right thing to do for the American people. They’ve made a decision and we’re respecting that.
To see the relevant transcript from the November 7 briefing, click here.
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