White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre and Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy had one of their usual back and forths during the August 28th press conference. After starting out with laughs over KJP being back to work, Doocy quickly turned the screws over a potential recommendation from so-called “health experts” that Americans drink only two beers a week.
Doocy started out asking the question in a playful, not particularly aggressive tone, likely trying to bait KJP into either telling the truth or making a bad mistake in her answer. He asked, “Does President Biden want to limit Americans to two beers a week?” He got her, as KJP had no idea what he was talking about despite it having dominated the news cycle when news of the potential recommendation came out. Attempting to respond, KJP said, “I — I — where is this coming from?”
Then, as Doocy started to answer her counter-question, saying, “It’s coming —,” KJP interrupted him with a joke, saying, “Maybe I did- — maybe I didn’t miss you so much.” Then, with her attempt at making the room laugh out of the way, she asked the same question again: “Where is this — where is this coming from?”
She continued to giggle but Doocy got down to brass tacks, citing his source on the beer question and noting that it would likely play quite poorly with the public. He said, “Dr. George Koob, who is the director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, says the U.S. may soon follow Canada and recommend just two beers a week. How do you guys think that’s going to go over?”
She refused to give an actual answer, saying, “Let me tell you what I’m not going to get involved in — in that in that question right there. I — I have no idea. I’ve not seen the data. I cannot speak to this. I will leave it to the experts and not weigh in.”
Doocy had his jaws clamped and wasn’t letting it go. He said, “So, if the experts say two beers a week, that’s okay with President Biden?” KJP stayed away from giving an answer, saying, “I will leave it to the experts. I’m just not going to comment on that.”
Watch that back and forth here:
As background, Biden’s so-called “alcohol czar,” Dr. George Koob, spoke to the Daily Mail about the alcohol guidelines that are coming up for review in 2025 and said that the recommended amount would likely go down. Speaking about that, Dr. Koob said, “If there’s health benefits, I think people will start to re-evaluate where we’re at [in the US].” Continuing, he added, “So, if [alcohol consumption guidelines] go in any direction, it would be toward Canada.” Canada limits recommended drinks to just two a week,
Dr. Koob added that there aren’t health benefits to drinking, saying, “Most of the benefits people attribute to alcohol, we feel they really have more to do with what someone’s eating rather than what they’re drinking.” He then added, “So it really has to do with the Mediterranean diet, socio-economic status, that makes you able to afford that kind of diet and make your own fresh food and so forth.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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