The Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck spent his writeup of the July 15 White House press briefing cheering that right-wing reporters (and a few others) were playing whataboutism over rhetoric in the wake of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump:
In the first White House press briefing since the failed assassination attempt on former President Trump, reporters from across the spectrum surprisingly took the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre to task for failing to state whether President Biden believes he too has to lower the proverbial temperature of our body politic. Along with Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich and Edward Lawrence, they also had cover from ABC, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.
As usual, the AP led off with Zeke Miller asking Jean-Pierre in straightforward fashion if Biden “regret[s] anything that he has said in the course of this campaign about his Republican rival or anybody else in the political space” and, if not, was his call Sunday to soften the rhetoric merely “a call for other people to make changes”.
Jean-Pierre predictably meandered and sputtered her way through, insisting Biden has always been against political violence and his rhetoric has been focused on “disagreements on agendas”:
[…]A few minutes later, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich admitted she would be asking about this topic:
[…]Heinrich had a biting follow-up, noting any change in tone “could be really hard to do” since “the platform of this administration, of his campaign…is that Trump and the MAGA Republican agenda is a threat to democracy.”
Jean-Pierre robotically kept to her talkers about how both sides “have our differences and it’s okay”, so it’s still fair game “to speak to someone’s record” and “character”.
Heinrich asked again point-blank: “Does the President view Trump’s agenda as a threat to democracy?”
By refusing to state no, Jean-Pierre showed the apocalyptic rhetoric would continue (click “expand”):
Houck also whined that Jean-Pierre gave a nice sendoff to the outgoing head of the White House Correspondents Association:
Before she took questions, Jean-Pierre had this nauseating tribute to NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell as she officially ended her term as White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) president, saying she had “been a great partner” while also “a trusted ally, friend, and leader” to the press corps.
“[I]it has been a joy and I have had — I’ve had the opportunity to know you for some time, even before being at the White House, and I really appreciate it, more personally — uh — your — uh — guidance, your mentorship — uh — in tough times,” she added.
It says a lot about Houck that he finds it so weirdly offensive that anyone says anything nice about a reporter who’s not a right-wing ideologue.
Houck fawned over his mancrush for his writeup of the July 25 briefing:
Despite having had a day to regroup and President Biden’s Oval Office address, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre still wouldn’t divulge (read: admit) Thursday why President Biden ended his campaign to seek reelection and, as such, even liberal White House reporters make her look foolish.
Fox’s Peter Doocy also did his thing, grilling her on leaked talking points from Vice President Kamala Harris’s team on the border and the latest acts of aggression by China and Russia.
Doocy first brought up the talking points and, at first, she hilariously denied it:
[…]Doocy also brought up how “Russia and China are teaming up in the skies near Alaska for the first time ever” and this could be a sign that “some of America’s enemies might be looking at what’s happening here and think there’s nobody in charge.”
Since he was the first to ask about it, Jean-Pierre went onto give a lengthy, written statement about how the U.S. and Canada didn’t see anything worth responding to.
By contrast, Houck whined about “softballs from ABC’s Karen Travers about the White House mood after Biden’s speech and then this one from Press Trust of India’s Lalit K. Jha with a softball about the left’s claims of Harris being subjected to rampant racism and sexism.” Houck wasn’t going to admit that a lot of the sexism and racism was coming from his right-wing friends.