The Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck wants you to think that Donald Trump has no responsibility to curb his hateful rhetoric, and he’s mad that Whtie House press secretary Karine Jean-PIerre called out his mancrush during the Sept. 17 briefing:
Tuesday’s White House press briefing provided the clearest indications yet the liberal media and their allies won’t tone down their rhetoric and continue to refer to Donald Trump and his supporters as dangerous and a “threat to democracy” despite the second assassination attempt on Trump in as many months.
Thanks to a slew of softballs from liberal media outlets such as ABC and CBS, they teamed with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to make the case that it’s Trump, running mate JD Vance, and Republicans who must turn down the temperature. And, when challenged on this by Fox’s Peter Doocy, Jean-Pierre told him it’s who he’s being “dangerous”.
Doocy listened until he was the second to last reporter called on and made it count by standing up for sanity:
It’s been only two days since somebody allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump again and you’re here at the podium in the White House Briefing Room calling him a threat. How many more assassination attempts on Donald Trump until the President and the Vice President and you pick a different word to describe Trump other than threat?
This led to a sigh from Jean-Pierre before arguing not only did she “completely disagree with the premise of your question,” but argued he was being “incredibly dangerous” for wondering whether the Biden-Harris regime should choose its words more careful.
By doing so, she insinuated, Doocy would inspire a disturbed person to put Biden or Harris’s life in danger seeing as how “American people are watching” him.
She also retreated to talking points about January 6 and Paul Pelosi as reasons “the temperature” (by Republicans) must be “lower[ed]”, adding it’s only factual to call attention to the danger the MAGA movement poses[.] […]
Jean-Pierre grossly stuck to her talking points by screaming about January 6 four times in less than 30 seconds as proof of violence on the right and further demanded Doocy “be careful on how you’re asking me these questions” and “people” could react violently to the White House, who are only here to “fight for our democracy” and “freedom”.
Houck curiously failed to highlight clips of Jean-Pierre’s purported “screaming” — which tells us she wasn’t actually doing that, and that he knows she wasn’t actually screaming. He also didn’t explain why he’s so offended by Jean-Pierre bringing up the Trump-incited Capitol riot.
Houck began his writeup of the Sept. 19 briefing this way:
Thursday’s White House press briefing lacked some quality Doocy Time for the second day in a row, but there was still plenty of tense back-and-forths featuring Newsmax’s James Rosen, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe, and surprisingly the AP’s Zeke Miller over the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to hold this week’s Quad Summit — featuring leaders from Australia, India, and Japan — in Wilmington, Delaware and thus severely curtail press access.
But Houck curiously (and lazily) failed to offer a writeup of the Sept. 18 briefing — which tells us that he only cares about these briefing when his favorite biased right-wing reporters get to grandstand and display their bias. Apparently, if there is isn’t any “quality Doocy Time,” it’s not worth his time. And we don’t recall Houck complaining about press access being curtailed when Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham went nearly an entire year without holding a briefing.
Houck had more Doocy Time mancrushing to gush over in the Sept. 30 briefing:
Monday’s White House press briefing was otherwise uneventful with plenty of process questions about the fallout from Hurricane Helene and concerns about Middle East tensions (which would grow Tuesday with Iran’s missile attacks), but Doocy Time brought the heat with challenging questions on dangerous illegal immigrants and how President Biden and Vice President Harris spent their weekend as untold numbers perished in North Carolina and the surroundings areas.
“13,000 people who have been convicted of murder crossed the border illegally and are living among us. So how much danger are you U.S. communities in right now because of this,” Doocy began, citing data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Jean-Pierre went down the route she did in June following a number of videos showing President Biden in states of confusion over in Europe, insisting they were all lies.
[…]Doocy had a simple follow-up to explain “what the misrepresentation is”, but Jean-Pierre refused to do so because the 13,000 number “is been falsely represented here” and “[i]f you look at the total returns and removal of the past year, that has been higher than every year under the previous administration since — since — uh — 2010[.]”
Houck made a sneering comment about “whatever that meant,” but he’s being deliberately obtuse. He knows exactly what Jean-PIerre is talking about — Doocy falsely portrayed the 13,000 number as taking place solely under the Biden administration when it actually spans decades. How do we know he knows? Because he linked to a post by his fellow MRC writer Geoffrey Dickens conceding that fact. But Houck won’t let inconvenient facts get in the way of his mancrushing:
Doocy moved on, but not before a final topic on the dock workers strike: “[H]ow worried your folks at the White House that a port strike that could make things like fruits and vegetables more expensive, could make it a lot harder for Vice President Harris to win the election?”
Of course, Jean-Pierre punted by citing the election and stating in part what the administration does believe is ensuring “workers are — are paid and wages and the economy is working — uh — and that we’re lowering costs for the American people[.]”
Houck didn’t explain why he thought it was OK for Doocy to ask such an obviously biased question.