‘The president was speaking from the heart’: Karine Jean-Pierre’s bizarre defense when asked if Biden, 80, repeating the same story – word-for-word – within minutes is a ‘concern’

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that President Joe Biden “spoke from the heart” when he repeated the same story twice during a fundraiser Wednesday night in New York City.

Jean-Pierre was asked twice about Biden’s flu on Friday — said in a room without cameras rolling, but with several journalists present because of rules about covering financial events in 2024.

A pool report from the event, held at the home of food safety expert Amy Goldman Fowler, noted that Biden spoke about how the white supremacist rally — and former President Donald Trump’s response to it — in Charlottesville in August 2017 inspired him to run for office pose for the White House. in the 2020 cycle.

“A few minutes later he told the story again, almost word for word,” the pool report said.

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asked Friday, “Is there any concern that he would completely retell a story in the same room at the same event?” as polls show a supermajority of Americans are concerned that Biden, 80, would be ineffective in a second term.

“Sometimes I also speak again from here and retell a story,” Jean-Pierre said, laughing.

“But look, I think it’s important to note that the president spoke, as you said at a fundraiser, and he spoke from his heart,” she continued. “He explained why he decided to do this.”

“And when you hear the president talk about this, it’s always incredibly emotional for him. Because he didn’t have to. “He was going through an incredibly difficult time when he decided to enter the race,” she added.

Biden decided not to run for president in 2016 due to the fact that he had lost his son Beau to brain cancer the year before.

The president has often said that Trump’s comment about “very fine people” — seemingly equating the group of KKK members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who descended on Charlottesville with the counter-protesters — encouraged him to jump back into politics.

“He saw, you know, as someone who served as a senator, as someone who served as vice president, what was going on in this country under the last president,” Biden said.

Jean-Pierre also noted that she did not ask Biden about the gaffe.

“I certainly haven’t talked to the president about it,” she told reporters.

But she talked about the “passion he has when he tells that story.”

“You all saw what we saw in Charlottesville, it was devastating,” Jean-Pierre said.

One counter-protester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was run over and killed by a vehicle driven by a white nationalist.

“He spoke passionately about that – and that’s why he’s in this, he’s in this because he believes he can help move this country forward in a way that brings it to its best,” Jean-Pierre added.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy was the first reporter in the briefing room to bring up Biden about Charlottesville at the same event, telling the story almost word for word.

“What about that?” he asked the press secretary.

To him, Jean-Pierre told her she had to be careful talking about the event — as it was a campaign fundraiser — because she might be violating the Hatch Act.

“Look, the president made it very clear why he decided to run for office in 2019,” she said. “I won’t comment on comments made at a campaign event, but I can certainly talk about why the president is president today and why he decided to take on this position.”