White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struck a forceful tone with reporters on Tuesday after a heated briefing on Monday, in which she defended her own words but also made statements that raised more questions about President Joe Biden.
She pushed back against accusations that she had not been forthcoming about Biden’s health and that the White House needed to clarify her comments later, joining the president’s aggressive strategy to repel Democrats’ calls to pull him from the 2024 race.
“I don’t agree with it. I don’t agree with it,” she said when pressed on the issue.
But she also added uncertainty when she refused to confirm whether President Biden would intervene in a possible nuclear attack that takes place after 8 p.m.
Fox News’ Peter Doocy referenced President Biden’s comments to governors that he would schedule fewer events after 8 p.m. so he could get more sleep. Doocy asked: If there was a nuclear attack after that time, who would handle it? The first lady?
“He has a team that briefs him on any, any news that is relevant and important to the American people,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s the National Security Council that tells him.”
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre played the attack Tuesday
Doocy was referring to comments made by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Fox News on Monday night, when he noted as Speaker that “Jill was often there when we had meetings in the Oval Office.”
“Jill came over often,” McCarthy said.
Jean-Pierre said the first lady does not make decisions.
“The president is the president of the United States and he makes the decision,” she said.
Under US law, only the US President has the authority to authorize the use of US nuclear weapons.
Jean-Pierre also brushed off a question about Hunter Biden joining the president for White House meetings. She noted that the family was together at Camp David and that upon their return to the White House, Hunter simply walked into a meeting with the president.
“He’s very close to his family. As you know, it was the week of the Fourth of July, so his family members were here last week. They walked together and they walked to the rally together,” she said.
The White House press secretary tried to mend relations with the media after Monday’s press conference, at times struggling to be heard amid a cacophony of questions about the 81-year-old president’s health.
She confirmed that he had been examined by a neurologist three times, but declined to say why a Parkinson’s specialist had visited the White House eight times in eight months, citing privacy and security concerns.
But that only led to a commotion among the usually docile front row of reporters, who bombarded her with demands for a proper explanation.
On Tuesday, she denied allegations that the White House was involved in a cover-up surrounding the president’s health.
“There’s a comprehensive medical, full comprehensive medical report on the whitehouse.gov website. I would encourage them to read that report,” she said. “It’s transparent. It’s there, it’s there for them to read.”
She noted that the President has regular verbal contact with Dr. O’Connor.
“The president comes by a couple times a week when he’s working out with his doctor,” she said.
The White House is in its second week of recovering from Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
Jean-Pierre is facing questions about her own credibility after she refused to answer questions about whether Cannard, a movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed Medical Center, treated the president.
It raised so many questions that Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, broke protocol later Monday night and released a letter explaining why Dr. Cannard visited the White House eight times in eight months.
Most of Cannard’s visits to the White House were in connection with his position as a specialist in the White House Medical Department, where he treated patients with a variety of neurological problems for 12 years, O’Connor said.
He said Cannard “has regularly conducted neurology clinics in the White House Medical Clinic in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned to support White House operations.”
“Many military personnel experience neurological problems related to their service, and Dr. Canard visits the WHMU regularly as part of his general neurology practice,” he added. “That could explain some of the visits.”
Questions remain about President Joe Biden’s health and first lady Jill Biden’s role in protecting her husband
Dr. Kevin Cannard is a movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland
And when asked Tuesday whether any of Cannard’s eight visits were intended to treat the president, Jean-Pierre said: “I can say that was not the case.”
Jean-Pierre also told reporters that the president’s physician’s statement that Biden can do his job without any adjustments remains accurate, despite concerns from Democratic lawmakers, donors and NATO allies.
She also stated that many of her points from Monday were already in Dr. O’Connor’s letter.
“I said that many of the things that were in the letter were repeated here at this podium yesterday,” she said.
“It was also assumed and insinuated that Dr. Cannard was someone who only worked on Parkinson’s, when in fact he is a general neurologist. That was something that Dr. O’Connor was actually able to confirm,” she noted.
CNN’s MJ Lee asked Jean-Pierre if she would backtrack on old statements she made about President Biden’s verbal gaffes.
Lee specifically asked about an incident last year when Biden asked about Congresswoman Jackie Walorski’s attendance at a White House event. Walorski had died in a car accident a month earlier.
“Would you give another explanation for that example?” Lee asked.
Jean-Pierre said she stood by her original answer that Walorsky was “at the top” of Biden’s mind, noting that “that came from him. And I was relaying directly to the president what he was thinking at that moment.”
And she noted that if she didn’t have “the full information. I actually admit that.”
“I’ve always been committed to doing the best I can to bring you the information that we have. That’s a team commitment. It’s been an unprecedented time. I think you can agree with that, right? It’s an unprecedented time,” she said.
“And so, we’re meeting the moment — a new moment that’s never really existed before. And so, we want to make sure that we give you all the information that we have and if we don’t have it, we do our best to provide information. And so, that’s something that I’ll continue to do.”
Biden is being criticized by some Democrats, who say he is not mentally strong enough to run as their candidate against Trump in the presidential election on November 5.
The revelation comes amid mounting criticism of the president’s mental state following his car-crash debate with rival Donald Trump.
Biden, 81, has tried to quash rumors that he is unfit to lead and continues to insist he will run in the November election, but has declined to say whether he regularly undergoes formal cognitive testing.
Jean-Pierre began Tuesday’s briefing about 90 minutes after it was originally scheduled. She said this was because she was in the Oval Office to talk to President Biden about Hurricane Beryl.