Jean-Pierre Stumbles Through Basic Questions on Gas, Guns, and Lyin’ Biden

After K-Pop band BTS led Tuesday’s White House press briefing, economic adviser Brian Deese and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced questions about the economy, gas prices, gun control, inflation, and student loans. Jean-Pierre used her briefing book as a clutch.

Deese went first and dealt with mostly open-ended questions and softballs such as one from Team Biden potted plant Kelly O’Donnell of NBC about whether the recent pickup in administration outreach on the economy has been an “implicit…acknowledgement that you have not been telling the story of the economic picture in a way that has been satisfactory to the President.”

O’Donnell wasn’t any better with Jean-Pierre: “The President has talked about understanding — from his life experience — those difficulties, economic hardships, and so forth.  Does he consider it a crisis for American families that prices are at this 40-year high?”

This is the way truth for power looks, dear readers. Liberals are more interested in describing their failures as failures to communicate than they are seeking answers.

Prior to O’Donnell’s Deese question, the great Philip Wegmann of Real Clear Politics asked a real question about how he saw President Biden’s “plan to forgive as much as $10,000 in student debt relief” could impact “consumer spending” and thus “have a negative impact on inflation.”

Shifting to Jean-Pierre’s block, she played dumb when CBS’s Ed O’Keefe invited her to “clarify” a Biden falsehood form his speech on Friday at the U.S. Naval Academy’s graduation in which he claimed “he was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1965” even though that was the same year he “graduated from the University of Delaware.” 

Jean-Pierre claimed she “did not hear that part of the speech” and would “need to read it myself” even though O’Keefe noted it was “right at the beginning…and there’s been a lot of writing about it since.”

Things didn’t let up for the former MSNBC political analyst as it was Doocy Time, which began with a simple question: “Canada is making it impossible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in that country. Would President Biden ever consider a similar restriction on handguns here?”

Jean-Pierre retreated to her notes and meandered about other gun control proposals (including Biden’s demand there be a “ban on the sale of assault weapons”) before insisting “[h]e does not support a ban on the sale of all handguns, to answer your question.”

Doocy then turned his attention to gas prices, and why they are higher than the minimum wage. Predictably, Jean-Pierre insisted Biden knows what it’s like to struggle as ordinary Americans are currently (even though Biden’s been part of the D.C. elite since 1974) and, in response to a Doocy follow-up, Russia and Vladimir Putin are to blame (click “expand”):

DOOCY. In certain areas of the country, one gallon is more expensive than an hour for people earning at least the federal minimum wage. What does the White House want these people to do — to stop driving to work?

JEAN-PIERRE Deese just spoke — spoke about this. Brian Deese just spoke about what it is like to be sitting at your kitchen table as gas prices rise. That feeling is something he personally feels. Or seeing prices of grocery store — of grocery — of groceries go up in the grocery store. He is aware of this and is trying to lower gas prices. 

(….)

DOOCY: And you just mentioned Putin a few times —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

DOOCY: — as a reason for recent inflation.  Do you guys think that any part of inflation this year is because of President Biden’s spending plans, or is it all Putin’s fault?

JEAN-PIERRE: Well, what I can say is we are — and Brian just spoke to this: We are at a historic place when it comes to the economy, when it comes to unemployment being at the lowest that we have seen in some time, when it comes to the President creating more jobs in his first term — his first year than any other President — eight point — more than 8.5 million jobs….This is an unprecedented time with the war. And so that — that Putin has created and started on Ukraine.  And so, we have seen — data has shown us, since — since these past couple of months — since the war, we have seen an uptick on gas prices.

Doocy wrapped with another basic question: “Does President Biden take any responsibility for his policies potentially contributing to inflation?”

Jean-Pierre answered with what can only be described as reckless abandonment to basic grammar “His policies has [sic]It helped get the economy back on its feet. This is what his policies did. [sic]His policies are [sic] done.”

Jean-Pierre found it much simpler later, thanks to gun control softballs by fellow leftists Mary Bruce (ABC), Jeff Mason (Reuters), and Tyler Pager (Reuters). The Washington Post (click “expand”):

BRUCE I mean, that’s not new to         this most recent massacre. What is it that the President sees that makes him feel confident about this new time? I mean, we’ve heard him say that he thinks everyone is getting more rational about this. He has seen so many Republicans give him this sense.

(….)

MASON: The President spoke out about the work of New Zealand on gun control, and the discussion with Prime Minister Mark McGuinness in New Zealand today.  The President asked what he thought or what the White House believes the United States can learn from New Zealand in regards to guns.

(….)

PAGER: As a candidate on the presidential campaign trail, he often said Republicans would have an epiphany after Trump was defeated, that they would “come to their senses,” in his words, and work with Democrats on certain issues. You will hear many Democrats say this is outdated and that the level of partisanship in the Senate today has grown significantly. Do you — does he still believe that there are 10 Republican senators willing to vote on some measure of gun reform? There’s criticism that that is — the view that Mitch McConnell and others are “rational Republicans” — given Mitch McConnell’s long and well-documented history of blocking any sort of vote on gun control throughout his leadership of the Republican Party.

Jean-Pierre then left the room. She ignored a very important question about A from Simon Ateba (of Today News Africa) as she fled the space. negative Team Biden storyIn Politico: “Do you know why Black people are leaving the Biden administration? Plenty of them left in the past few months.”

Click here to view the transcript from May 31’s briefing.