Resurfaced footage from 2022 shows an intense exchange between White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and members of the press. Tensions flared between KJP and the White House press corps after the spokeswoman made a perceived slight toward the Daily Caller’s correspondent Diana Glebova.
For background, Dr. Anthony Fauci was hosting a press briefing where he had just stepped away from the podium. Glebova insisted that she had inquired several times as to what Fauci had done to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, to which KJP stepped to the podium and scolded her for being “disrespectful.”
“Hold on one second, we have a process here. I’m not calling on people who yell. You’re being disrespectful to your colleagues and you’re being disrespectful to our guest. I will not call on you if you yell, and also you’re taking time off the clock,” she said.
After KJP’s comment to Glebova, other members of the press corps hit back at the press secretary. April Ryan, a reporter for The Grio, asserted that KJP was the one being “disrespectful.” Glebova attempted to speak up for herself but was quickly shot down by KJP, who insisted she would not get into a “back-and-forth” with her.
The Daily Caller White House correspondent further lamented that KJP always “calls on the same all the time.” Several other members of the press, such as the New York Post’s Steven Nelson and Africa News Today’s Simon Ateba. “She’s asking a good question, she’s asking a very good question,” Ateba said. “You need to call on people across the room, she has a valid question, she’s asking about the origins of COVID,” he added. KJP acknowledged the statement but refused to respond to it.
In the aftermath of the heated exchange, Glebova wrote on X, “I attempted to ask Fauci several times on what he personally did to demand answers into the origins of COVID-19. I always come with honest answers that Americans want to know. That’s why the White House refuses to call on me, and then calls ME “disrespectful.”
Furthermore, the Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll told Fox News Digital in an interview, “In the wake of Biden’s meeting with Xi, and in the same hour that unredacted emails were released showing Dr. Fauci’s early messaging efforts on COVID origins, we tried to ask the doctor if he had advised the president to press Xi for transparency on covid. KJP immediately bulldogged our reporter to wait for a ‘turn’ that never materialized and respect the ‘process.’ Instead of substance, that ‘process’ resulted in the same parade of dorks asking silly questions like ‘why have masks become a pejorative?’ and how Fauci, who admitted lying to Americans, counters ‘disinformation.’” Watch the incident below:
The Spectator Contributing Editor Stephen Miller illustrated how KJP’s conduct was a threat to journalism and freedom of the press. “An incredible display of threatening anti-journalism. This is dangerous. This is a vile threat to the very foundations of which our free press democracy is based upon. A free press that is allowed to question our government is a sacred virtue for which our Republic must safe gua-” Miller wrote on X.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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