Things got wild at the February 23 White House press briefing, with Fox News Channel’s White House Correspondent, Peter Doocy, battling with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre. During the press briefing, KJP tried blaming the border crisis on Republicans and got shut down by Doocy, who called her out on the ridiculousness of that statement.
The spat kicked off with Doocy asking her about why Biden is changing his mind on border policies, asking, “Thank you, Karine. On the consideration of these new executive orders for the border. What changed between the time President Biden said, “We are a nation who says, ‘If you want to flee and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come,’” and now?”
KJP acted like she didn’t understand what he meant, saying, “I don’t understand. What — what do you mean? The — your question, I don’t get —” Doocy, cutting her off, noted, that “As a candidate —President Biden was telling people to come to the border. So, what has changed since then?”
Stumped, she claimed not to understand the question and then let loose with a long ramble in which she tried blaming the right for the troubles at the border, saying, “I — I don’t have a context of this quote that you’re giving me. But what I will say is this. The President took this issue very seriously of what is happening at the border and what — and the immigration system as a whole. Right?”
She continued, “And we have said over and over again, this is a system that has been broken for decades, under the last administration, as you know, which was a Republican administration, and other administrations before that. And he took this so seriously that the first piece of legislation that he put forth on day one was on immigration reform. That is what counts, and that is what matters.”
She added, “And for the past several months, we worked with Republican senators and also Democrats in the Senate to try to come up with a fair and tough piece of legislation that would deal with border security. That was — let’s not forget — endorsed by the border union patrol. And that’s how seriously the President has taken it. We’ve done this for months, and House Republicans have gotten in the way. The Speaker has gotten in the way. And so, we want to deal with this issue. This is an issue that majority of Americans care about. House Republicans, the Speaker got in the way. The question really is for the Speaker: What changed? Speaker Johnson, what’s changed?”
Doocy then fired off another question that put her on the defensive, asking, “Something else President Biden has promised is a more humane border policy than Trump. So, why would he even be considering now a border policy that is more similar to Trump?”
Replying, she asked, “What border policy are you talking about?” Doocy asked if Biden is really going to start implementing much tougher restrictions at the border, asking, “Well, Axios is reporting that the legal authority Biden is considering using powered Trump’s Muslim ban and similar sweeping restrictions at the border.”
That shut KJP down, as she refused to give an answer and instead just retreated to trying to blame Republicans, saying, “I’m not going to get into — get into or comment on individual policy option that’s being speculated right now. As I said before, no decisions have been made. We want to make sure — the President has been very clear: He wants to make sure that our country is safer, and we need more Border Security, abv- — obviously, to secure our border. We’ve been very clear about that. And we want to do it while treating people fairly and humanely, and that is consistent with our values.”
Continuing, she said, “But, look, Republicans continue to get in the way. Speaker Johnson has gotten in the way of this. And so, a lot of these questions are for him. We did our job. The Senate did their job in a bipartisan way on — there are provisions in that — polic- — policies that are in that legislation that Republicans agreed with at some point, not very long ago — just last year — that they agreed with. And now they’re rejecting it.”
Watch their back and forth here:
"*" indicates required fields