MRC’s Jean-Pierre-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Missing Data Edition

Curtis Houck then served up his usual biased interpretation — unsurprisingly heavy on the Doocy-fluffing — of the March 6 press briefing:

Fox’s Peter Doocy made the most Wednesday afternoon of the last briefing for the week (with Thursday’s State of the Union and President Biden on the road for Friday) as he went around and around with the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre over whether Biden will actually debate former President Trump now the general election fight is all but set in stone.

But first, as a quick aside, Doocy led off with a question that drew some chuckles concerning Tuesday’s caucus in American Samoa: “[H]as President Biden called to congratulate Jason Palmer?”

Once Jean-Pierre replied that Team Biden does “congratulate Jason Palmer on his win last night,” Doocy cut to the main event: “Now that the field is down to two, is President Biden going to commit to a debate with Donald Trump?”

Jean-Pierre refused to answer, hiding behind the Hatch Act and thus punting to the campaign. Nonetheless, Doocy pointed out how, during the last campaign, Biden said he could “hardly wait to debate” Trump[.] […]

Doocy tried another way: “You get a lot of questions in here about these polls concerning the President’s age and his acuity. Do you think that it is going to quiet concerns about the President’s age and acuity if he decides not to debate?”

Only then with the qualifier that she wouldn’t specifically be “talking about the debate” did she opine that Biden’s age will be put to rest by the State of the Union and Biden “lay[ing] out his plans” after “a successful three years of progress.”

A long, winding answer later (that was interrupted by a loud sneeze in the back of the Briefing Room), Doocy kept pushing: “So, just for clarity, it’s possible that there will be no Joe Biden-Donald Trump debates this fall?”

Jean-Pierre thought she could mock Doocy into giving up: “Is that you — is that what you’re excited about? Is that what you want to see? Because you keep asking me. You asked me about three, four, five different times in different ways.”

Amid crosstalk, Doocy wasn’t having it: “I would love to see Joe Biden and Donald Trump debate. How about you? How would President Biden do in a debate? I’m not asking a question about a specific debate. I’m just — how would he do in a debate?”

Neither Doocy nor Houck mentioned the fact that Trump refused to participate in any debate with his Republican primary opponents, meaning that Trump — not Biden — is the one who needs to be questioned about his debate avoidance. Don’t expect them to do that, of course — narratives are more important than facts in right-wing media.

In his write of the March 12 briefing, Houck hyped how a non-Doocy Fox reporter obsessed over something President Biden said about Hungary:

During Tuesday’s White House press briefing featuring the ever-inept Press Secretary. Karine Jean-Pierre, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich dropped the jackhammer on President Biden declaring Hungary a dictatorship, the Biden border crisis, and Biden now touting Hamas-approved statistics on the war in Gaza.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg and ABC reporters questioned both on the bipartisan bill to force TikTok to divest from its Chinese Communist Party-linked parent company, and arguably the most pro-Hamas journalist in the room lashed out at the U.S. for supporting Israel.

Heinrich took the Hungary questions to Sullivan: “Is it the position of the United States government that Hungary, a NATO ally, is a dictatorship?”

Sullivan punted to the reelection campaign since the President leveled the charge at a campaign event, but conceded “we have made no bones about our deep concerns about Hungary’s assault on democratic institutions, including the judiciary, Hungary’s corruption, and other erosion of democracy in Hungary, from the leadership there.”

Heinrich tried again, arguing “a foreign policy statement of that magnitude would be made with, you know, some coordination” and not a “footnote”. Sullivan again declined to weigh in, even leveling a snarky charge that Hungary’s government “remains a source of grave concern to us and I — I take it from your question, it may be of grave concern to you as well.”

Surprisingly, a Fox reporter was actually defended by The New York Times with their White House correspondent Peter Baker noting Biden’s Hungary line was so significant that “[t]he Foreign Minister of Hungary than summoned the U.S. ambassador to answer for it and says that these were lies and an insults.”

Houck failed to disclose that his employer has a partnership with a right-wing Hungarian group that has close ties to the alleged dictator in question, Viktor Orban.

In another post on that briefing, Houck relied on a fellow right-winger to help him attack Jean-Pierre:

Amid the questions during Tuesday’s White House press briefing about the border crisis, TikTok, and the war in Gaza, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe had a brief exchange with the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre about a topic that might have seemed silly on the surface, but was worth asking, which was whether the White House has digitally altered photos like the British royals were caught doing with Princess Kate in what’s become what the Brits call a row.

But, thanks to work in the last year by our friend John Hasson at Townhall, we know Jean-Pierre’s answer was, at best, misleading.

[…]

In a September 6 post, Hasson took notice of a tweet from Joe Biden’s X account on the same day with a photo of Trump on the left and Biden on the right, alongside a headline from each man’s presidency on infrastructure. 

Hasson observed that, upon closer examination, “Biden’s altered appearance looks practically cartoonish” with his face appearing to have been made “thinner, and the wrinkles on his forehead, cheeks, and neck have been drastically reduced, smoothing his complexion” to help “mak[e] Biden seem younger and healthier than he really is.”

And it’s not just the White House. On August 1, Hasson called out numerous Biden allies on social media for making their elderly President appear younger:

[…]

So, while none of those came from the @WhiteHouse X account, Jean-Pierre certainly can’t say the regime’s hands are clean.

We don’t recall Houck (or Hasson) ever complaining that Trump posted photos on his social media accounts that make him look better than reality.