Curtis Houck found a biased question from a right-wing reporter who wasn’t Peter Doocy to tout in his writeup of the Nov. 20 White House press briefing:
On Monday, Newsmax’s James Rosen brought the rhetorical curtains down on the last White House press briefing ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday (and President Biden’s departure to Nantucket) with a series of probing questions to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about polling with being Rosen’s thesis: “[A]re only certain polls valid in your eyes – the ones that support your agenda?”
One could tell it was going to be good from the moment Rosen thanked Jean-Pierre “as always” for calling on him and she proceeded to chuckle. He then merely got out, “I want to ask you about” before Jean-Pierre half-jokingly interjected: “I might regret it, but go ahead.”
After Rosen drew laughter for saying “I assure you, you will not,” he cut to the chase, starting with President Biden’s February interview with Telemundo in which he largely dismissed the negative polls about his job performance: “[H]e answered in words to this effect: ‘Do you know anyone that believes the polling these days?’ And he talked in some detail about the difficulty of getting people on the phone and compiling accurate polling.”
Rosen used that answer alongside his summation of what Jean-Pierre usually says when negative polls are invoked by reporters in the room, which he paraphrased as “we’re not going to look at the polls; we look at his accomplishments.”
But, when polling goes in a favorable direction on “various domestic policy initiatives,” Rosen noted to Jean-Pierre she’s quick to argue something to the effect of Americans “support what the President’s agenda is.”
Houck’s focus on selective poll promotion is hilarious given his employer’s record on the issue: After the 2020 election, it falsely accused pollsters ofmaking up polls that showed Donald Trump losing to Joe Biden, but touted those same pollsters when their polls showed Biden with low favorability ratings — in other words, the MRC considers only those polls that advance its right-wing agenda to be valid. Still, Houck persistedd in fawning over Rosen:
Rosen was even more blunt in his final question wondering if “the White House ha[s] any basis to challenge the accuracy of” polling “show[ing] that the electorate at large and also significant majorities within the Democratic Party believe that the President is too old,” “the American people and also significant majorities within the Democratic Party don’t want him to run again, and…his handling of the economy, foreign policy,” which are each “dismal” for Biden.
Despite the record showing she never answered his previous questions in full, Jean-Pierre maintained “we never challenged” polls and she’s “not” doing that “here”.
For the Nov. 27 briefing, Houck raged at a “far-left” reporter (though he never tagged Rosen with a “right-wing” label):
For the first White House press briefing since the Thanksgiving holiday, it was the ultimate contrast of stupidity vs. substance. In the one corner, longtime far-left White House correspondent and African-American activist April Ryan lobbied the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to have President Biden discuss “the black agenda” with Stevie Wonder.
In the other corner, Fox’s Peter Doocy actually decided to challenge Jean-Pierre and the administration by standing up for Americans who continue to struggle with inflation.
Ryan cut to the chase with her hackery, saying she “had an in-depth conversation with Stevie Wonder last night,” but was interrupted by others in the room (journalists and/or White House staff) laughing at this train of thought. She then lashed out, saying “it’s a serious question.”
Note that Houck also failed to hang an ideological tag on his mancrush Doocy. And, of course, he gave Doocy more love:
Doocy followed up with another hardball: “But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving, and President Biden says the economy is improving that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?”
Jean-Pierre blamed it entirely on Donald Trump, so Doocy fact-checked her by noting Trump’s been gone for three years and, while inflation has slowed, prices are still increasing[.]
Meanwhile, Alex Christy contributed a glancing blow at Jean-Pierre over claims about Thanksgiving dinner costs in a Nov. 22 post:
PolitiFact and Factcheck.org are both part of Facebook’s fact-checking program that rates and suppresses online content, but what is Facebook to do when the two have a disagreement? A Wednesday article from PolitiFact rates a claim about the cost of Thanksgiving from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “mostly true,” while Factcheck.org accused both her and the RNC of partisan cherry-picking.
The specific claim from Jean-Pierre is “Because wages are rising, this Thanksgiving dinner is the fourth-cheapest ever as a percentage of average earnings.”
[…]Factcheck.org does not issue ratings like PolitiFact’s truth-o-meter or the Washington Post ’s Pinocchio scale, but if they did, they would probably not give Jean-Pierre a “mostly true” on the grounds that Jean-Pierre was cherry-picking. Disagreements between fact-checking outlets only adds to the evidence that shows they do not speak with the voice of God.
Christy is likely more upset that the RNC was called out for cherry-picking numbers than he was about Jean-Pierre.