Media Research Center writer Curtis Houck’s writeup of the July 24 White House press briefing featured his usual ritual bashing of press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and ritual mancrushing over biased Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. Here’s how he started it:
With President Biden’s mysterious, sudden departure from Las Vegas last week after what his doctor insisted was just a positive Covid test and a week of isolation that culminated in dropping out of the 2024 campaign, Wednesday marked the first White House press briefing since July 15, so there were bound to be tense moments like Fox’s Peter Doocy alleging a “cover up” of Biden’s physical decline.
In fact, there was nothing “mysterious” or sudden about it: He’s invoking a right-wing conspiracy theory. Then the mancrushing over Doocy seriously commenced with loving — but selective — detail of his biased questioning:
Things started innocently with Doocy asking Jean-Pierre how she was “doing with all of this”, to which Jean-Pierre jokingly huffed, “you care about how I feel?”
Doocy then asked if she’d “stick around for a potential President Harris administration”, but Jean-Pierre quipped she’s just trying to “get through the day”. She then remarked she hadn’t seem him “in awhile”, leaving Doocy to clap back “Well, uh, you guys haven’t had a press briefing since President Biden dropped out of the race, so —.”
Things immediately grew tense when Doocy cut to the chase: “It — it would seem that people in this White House knew that President Biden was slipping and it was hidden from the American people, so who ordered White House officials to cover up a declining President?”
Jean-Pierre claimed this was “a narrative that you love” and, from there, the cross-talk began with Jean-Pierre trying to shut Doocy down so she could filibuster. On the other side, Doocy pointed out “he did a press conference at NATO”, insisted he was “in it” to win, and had “all these things…to finish and then, 10 years later” he quits.
[…]Doocy pivoted to Vice President Kamala Harris’s record on the border: “Does she still want to get rid of [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]?”
Jean-Pierre refused to say and instead blamed Republicans for the border crisis because not enough of them supported a deal negotiated between the White House and a select few senators.
Houck is dishonestly framing this exchange. As Mediaite reported, Jean-Pierre pointed out that Republicans tanked the bipartisan bill under orders from Donald Trump — something that even Fox News agreed happened: “You guys reported that. That’s not coming from me.” Tellingly, Houck refused to provide video or a transcript of that exchange.
Doocy asked a slightly different question: “As a partner, though, she’s been in charge of root causes of migration for years, she has never spoken to the Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens or the Border Patrol Chief before him, Raoul Ortiz. What should that tell us about her leadership style?” But Houck didn’t want to talk about that, so it was back to the Doocy mancrushing:
Doocy asked a slightly different question: “As a partner, though, she’s been in charge of root causes of migration for years, she has never spoken to the Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens or the Border Patrol Chief before him, Raoul Ortiz. What should that tell us about her leadership style?”
Jean-Pierre scoffed at this question with the insistence she was tasked with addressing “root causes”, so she didn’t need to meet with them so much as engage in “diplomacy” with other countries.
Houck also failed to mention that another right-wing reporter, James Rosen of Newsmax, apparently got jealous over the attention Jean-Pierre was giving to Doocy, interjecting at one point, “You control the briefing room, not Peter. Come on.”
Interesting that Houck censors factual information that’s unflattering to his mancrushing targets. That makes a biased, unreliable writer — the kind that his employer regularly attacks.