Reporter Lets KJP Have It After Press Secretary Smirks, Says 'I'm Not Calling on You'
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre often ignores reporters from certain news outlets that challenge the Biden administration’s narrative.
At a Wednesday press briefing, Jean-Pierre once again smugly refused to call on New York Post reporter Steven Nelson.
This time, however, Nelson fired back.
“You haven’t called on me in two seasons, Karine,” Nelson said in a clip posted to X on Wednesday.
“I’m not calling on you today,” a smirking Jean-Pierre answered.
Nelson refused to back down.
“You should be ashamed of that,” the reporter protested. “That shows disrespect to a free and independent media to blacklist one of our country’s largest and most widely read newspapers, Karine. That shows contempt for a free and independent press.”
Jean-Pierre merely maintained her smirk and raised her eyebrows. Then, with her next move, she unintentionally acknowledged Nelson’s grievance.
“Go ahead,” she said while pointing to a different reporter. “I’m calling on somebody who I haven’t called in a long time as well. Go ahead.”
KJP completely freezes out @NYPost‘s @StevenNelson10, stating with a smirk that “I’m not calling on you today!”
Nelson hit back: “You should be ashamed of that! That shows disrespect to a free and independent media! It’s blasphemous to one of our country’s largest & widely read… pic.twitter.com/5Ld1Awb2jU
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 11, 2023
Much like her boss, President Joe Biden, Jean-Pierre did not acquire her position through competence or tact.
Consider, for instance, the non-answers and shamefully rude treatment she has given certain reporters in the last month alone.
In mid September, she bolted from the podium and ignored a reporter who pressed her on Biden’s interactions with his son Hunter’s foreign business associates.
A week later, she called on her nemesis, Fox News’ Peter Doocy, but then refused to answer Doocy’s question about illegal border crossings.
Then, last week, Jalil Afridi of The Frontier Post in Pakistan asked if he could pose two questions since Jean-Pierre had ignored him for four months. When the press secretary made a snide remark and Afridi understandably seemed confused about how to proceed, Jean-Pierre snapped at him. “I think you’re wasting our time, sir,” she said.
On some level, Jean-Pierre deserves our pity.
For one thing, her daily task consists of explaining and defending the president’s inexplicable and indefensible policies. The number of half-truths and outright lies her job requires cannot be good for the soul.
Moreover, her job also involves a strange combination of caretaking and damage control.
For instance, who can forget the president’s infamous press conference in Vietnam last month, when Jean-Pierre interrupted an incoherent Biden and put a hasty end to one of the most humiliating, unintentionally comical and generally unbelievable public appearances by a president in U.S. history?
On the other hand, Jean-Pierre certainly has profited from her role as press secretary. As evidenced by a dinner in her honor held last week and attended by prominent establishment media personalities, she has won admission to the club of the powerful.
The problem, of course, is that both her general behavior and her coziness with the establishment media lend credence to Nelson’s charge of “contempt for a free and independent press.”
By contrast, recall how former President Donald Trump engaged with the media. He correctly labeled them “fake news” but always fielded their hostile questions. Even Andrew Cuomo, disgraced former Democratic governor of New York, bemoaned the Trump White House reporters’ “unprofessional” conduct and “really biased questions.”
Indeed, the differences between the Trump and Biden administrations on both transparency and work ethic could not be more stark.
Trump concealed nothing and worked tirelessly at everything. Biden seldom takes questions and never appears active or engaged.
This week, in fact, amid escalating Middle East conflict, the White House announced a “lid” on Biden’s day before noon. The current president has shown no respect for the American people. Staffers protect him from reporters’ questions.
In that sense, Jean-Pierre serves as one of Biden’s ablest representatives.
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