White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre was asked about House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s threat to impeach President Joe Biden over allegations of corruption. Predictably, she didn’t handle the question with grace and calmly dispose of it: she snapped back and raised eyebrows, with people who saw her response wonder if McCarthy’s threats have irked the White House.
KJP’s snapping response came when a reporter in the press pool began to ask about the impeachment situation, saying, “And one more on the — Speaker McCarthy’s comments on impeachment inquiry. His point seems to be —”
KJP cut the reporter off, saying, “Wait, say that again.” Such was done and the question posed yet again: “Speaker McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry comments. He seems to be making the point that he thinks there’s been enough mounting evidence to at least have an inquiry on this.”
She didn’t like that question and angrily dodged it. Over the reporter’s objections, she snapped, “I’ve already spoken to this —twice before though.” The reporter didn’t let it go, asking, “But can you at least say whether you agree or disagree that there’s enough mounting evidence?”
She could not. Instead, she said, “I answered two of your colleagues this — this question about what Speaker McCarthy is going to do, not — not going to do, how House Republicans are going to move forward. I just don’t have anything else to share.”
Watch the back and forth here:
Earlier in the briefing, CNN White House correspondent Kevin Liptak asked, “The House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is talking more about starting an impeachment investigation into the President. What’s your response to that? And if he did that, would that make any kind of cooperation with the House impossible going forward?”
KJP, dsipite her later protestations, didn’t really give an answer or get into the matter of impeachment. Rather, she said, “Look, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. I’m not going to get into what the House Republicans may or may not do. What I can speak to is what the President is focused on. He’s focused on real priorities that American families care about. He’s focused on the American family, but they want to focus on his family. They can do whatever it is that they wish to do, but we’re going to stay focused. We’re going to stay steadfast.”
Continuing, she added, “And there are two examples of — today — of how the President is moving forward. I just talked about the mental health — the mental health event that he — that the President just had and announcing actions to expand access to mental health care and tackle this crisis, which is, as you all know, a critical part of his Unity Agenda that he’s spoken about for the past two years and will continue to do so. And let’s not forget, earlier today, Emmett Till and what we were able to do, what the President was able to do, to make sure that there’s a monument that continues — a monument for Emmett Till and his mom to continue to — to shed light on that part of our history and to tell that story so we can move forward.”
In other words: she didn’t give an answer and instead tried to fall back on civil rights.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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