The Media Research Center’s Tim Graham spent a March 7 post whining that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t get the Curtis Houck smear treatment on a non-right-wing outlet:
The PBS NewsHour was comfy-friendly territory for Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday night in her State of the Union preview. PBS anchor Geoff Bennett and Jean-Pierre were both MSNBC regulars a few years back.
The whole interview sounded like a Democrat strategy session. How does Biden use this speech to beat Trump? It’s allegedly a speech appealing for “unity,” but it’s a campaign speech?
Bennett began by declaring the speech is “essentially the hard launch of his reelection campaign. And this is a president who is facing sinking poll numbers, concerns about his age, a progressive base that’s been splintered over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. How is the president aiming to use this speech to address those concerns, while also conveying his vision for the future?”
Here’s how you define softball interview: Jean-Pierre was then allowed to speak for 358 words (almost two minutes), about women’s reproductive health “under attack,” democracy “under attack,” blah blah blah, before they edited into the next question.
It’s quite ironic for Graham to complain about softball questions, given that softball questions were all he and Houck tossed when they had the chance to interview Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
Another non-Houck Karine-hater was Christian Toto, who devoted his March 9 column to pretending that Joe Rogan’s overheated rants about Jean-Pierre should be treated as serious political commentary. He started that mock-worthy Trump press secretaries got mocked:
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has it easier than her predecessors.
They often became comic foils for late-night hosts or “Saturday Night Live.”
Sometimes both.
Consider how satirists pounced and seized on President Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer after just a few short months in the gig.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders proved far more capable in the gig. She, too, got pummeled by satirical comics.
Comedians won’t lay a glove on Jean-Pierre. That’s despite the way she constantly flips through her notes to answer basic questions. Her predecessor, Jen Psaki, proved far more competent.
One comedian noticed Jean-Pierre’s curious skill set, and his podcast is arguably the biggest show around.
The host of “The Joe Rogan Experience” teed off on the woman known as KJP on his latest episode.
Popularity does not equate to insight, something Toto doesn’t seem to understand — he seems content to believe that because Rogan as “arguably the biggest show around,” he must have something worthwhile to say. He then went into stenographer mode:
Rogan, chatting with conservative activist Christopher Rufo, explored the likely 2024 presidential rematch between Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
The mind behind Austin’s Comedy Mothership club noted, once again, that Biden is too old to be campaigning for a second term.
“He’s so frail that he’s transparent … to the point where the White House Press Secretary accidentally Tweeted as him from her account,” Rogan said. “I love it when that happens because, thank you, I was wondering, now I know. I kinda had a feeling it was you.”
Joe Rogan to Karine Jean-Pierre: You Should Be Fired
The podcaster then went from the rhetorical kill.
“Has there ever been a worse press secretary [than Jean-Pierre]?” he asked. “How did she get that job? She’s so bad at convincing people.”
There’s a bunch of hard-core, ideologically driven left-wing pundits that are on YouTube that would do a much better job, and they would be psycho about it, and the Left would be like, ‘Yeah!’ She’s not the one. She’s f***ing terrible at it. She gets called out for stuff all the time. She gets set up for stuff all the time. Like [Fox News White House Correspondent] Peter Doocy is always setting her up.”
“And she’s only really challenged by one person in the briefing room, and she manages to bungle it up on the daily,” Rufo said.
“There’s so much madness she has to cover up,” Rogan said, partially defending her.
Spicer had arguably more madness to cover up working for Trump — and neither Rogan nor Toto mentioned that Spicer infamously tried to do so in falsely insisting that a huge crowd turned out for Trump’s inauguration when the evidence clearly showed otherwise. And, of course, neither of them admitted that Doocy is a biased, ideological right-wing reporter — we thought right-wingers hated it when journalists displayed an biased and ideological agenda.
Further, despite identifying Rogan as a “comedian,” Toto identified nothing Rogan said that even remotely resembled a joke.