WaPo reporter slams White House for LYING about Naomi Biden’s wedding

A Washington Post reporter called out the White House for misleading reporters about who was allowed to cover the wedding of President Joe Biden’s granddaughter.

Ashley Parker said the White House characterization of who would be allowed access to Naomi Biden’s White House wedding in the press was akin to lies she heard the Trump administration tell during its coverage.

Parker, a political correspondent for the Washington Post, said Trump’s lies were “shameless” while Biden’s were “half way too cute.”

She and other reporters complained that White House Press Secretary Karine Jeanne-Pierre told them the wedding would be a closed, private affair, only to see Vogue run a story featuring exclusive photos of the wedding party.

As the fury of the journalists rained down on Twitter, it was revealed that Vogue photographers were not present at the actual wedding, instead organizing a photo shoot days in advance.

Parker doubled down on her complaints, saying the wedding flub was far from the Biden administration’s only lie, saying they had lied about attending presidential meetings and the president’s plans for a recent trip to Egypt.

Naomi, the eldest granddaughter of Joe Biden and the son of his son Hunter, married her fiancé Peter Neal at the White House last Saturday.

Nowhere to be seen at the ceremony were members of the White House press corps, who had been told by Jeanne-Pierre that they could not attend.

But when Vogue released an article Tuesday full of photos of the wedding-wear lovers seemingly present at the wedding itself, those reporters lashed out at the White House.

“I had word in October that Vogue was tapped to cover this and I was sent away. The official explanation is that Vogue was not there the day of,” wrote Katie Rogers, White House correspondent for the New York Times.

‘Loophole = the family organized a ‘wedding at the WH’ shoot beforehand.

“Private” per @PressSec = not for the White House press,” she added, tagging the White House press secretary.

After the Vogue photo came out, Parker described the various ways that both the Trump administration and the Biden administration lied.

“I spent four years beating Trump WH and two years beating Biden WH,” she tweeted Tuesday morning. ‘The fascinating thing is that they both lie, albeit in different ways. The Trump team was shameless, while the Biden team is half too cute.”

When commentators began expressing their confusion and outrage at her mixing up the behavior of the two administrations, Parker tried to clarify her statement while also sticking to it.

TO BE CLEAR: Not all lies are created equal and the magnitude, frequency and boldness is certainly different. But the Biden WH, for example, also refrained us from properly reporting on Biden’s choice of SCOTUS, his trip to Egypt, participants in private meetings, etc.”

Aside from the Biden wedding, it’s unclear exactly what other cases Parker was alluding to. After posting her tweet, White House assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan appeared to be referring to a miscommunication about Biden’s plans to attend the COP27 summit in Egypt.

To be clear, the Washington Post reported that a trip had been previously confirmed. We have officially told you that it has not been confirmed. We have even offered WaPo the exclusive if and when confirmed,” Hasan wrote.

“We would never risk our credibility, especially over something like scheduling.”

A number of other reporters subsequently joined the pile.

Nancy Cook, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, tweeted a quote from Jeanne-Pierre clarifying that reporters couldn’t cover the wedding.

“White House Press Secretary Karine Jeanne-Pierre on Nov. 18: “They’ve decided to make this wedding private. It’s a family event. That’s it — and we will honor Naomi and Peter’s wishes.” she wrote.

Niels Lesniewski, a correspondent for Roll Call, said the deal with Vogue should have been made very clear.

“I think we all knew this was going to happen, but if they wouldn’t let the pool photographers in because the rights had been sold, we should have known.”

New York Times journalist Maggie Habberman also chimed in, saying that small lies can “give way to bigger ones.”

“We deal with the little lies that politicians tell because they can make way for bigger ones, for people who wonder why this is news. That’s what the press is supposed to do.’