Friday’s White House press briefing saw more hardballs about President Biden’s documents scandal, but also plenty of eye-rolling questions lobbying for a female person of color to become White House chief of staff, how Biden processes racial tensions, whether “the culture of policing” has “a comfort with violence and” implants inside the minds of police officers “an entitlement to use violence” as was the case in Memphis with Tyre Nichols.
The Associated Press’s Darlene Superville used her pole position to demand that, with the news that current Chief of Staff Ron Klain is stepping down and replaced by former COVID coordinator Jeff Zients, Biden “commit to choosing a chief of staff who is not white and male” as a Zients successor (if one’s needed).
Why? Well, as she explained, this is “one of the more powerful ones in Washington that has never been held by someone who was not white and male.”
Superville’s cockamamie question fit considering the fact that not only is she an ardent leftist for the Bidens, this came a day after her outlet declared that the word “the” is dehumanizing.
With one of the most outstanding examples of why diversity hires are terrible standing in front of her, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the administration as “the most diverse in history” and listing a slew of spots on a diversity bingo card about the percentage of LGBTQ people, racial minorities, and women on staff.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly disappointed with a softball about Biden’s feelings, “wondering if” Jean-Pierre “could talk about — just from a personal side of things for him, how much” his relationship with George Floyd’s family “has informed or maybe had an impact on how he processes or sees things like it appears we are about to see down in Memphis.”
The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg had the ludicrous probes on policing, which began with him stating the fact “in previous police brutality cases in the past couple years, the officers have been White” with the Nichols case having all-Black officers.
That said, Feinberg leveled his disgusting stereotype:
[I]s the President concerned that, within the culture of policing, there is a comfort with violence and an entitlement to use violence that would leave these officers to beat a man to death from them during a traffic stop? Does he feel that police may feel emboldened to do these things and what would he do about that?
To her credit, Jean-Pierre wasn’t on board and said Biden’s “called for meaningful reform” while also believing “the vast majority” of police officers “wear the badge honorably and that is important to” communities everywhere.
Having long ago been stricken with Trump Derangement Syndrome, Feinberg tied controversial police incidents to former President Trump because, “in 2017,” he “encouraged police officers to ‘don’t be too nice’ and suggested that they — they might hit the heads of prisoners on the tops of their patrol cars.”
Because of a comment Trump made five years ago, Feinberg demanded Biden “speak to police officers” to insist “this kind of behavior is not acceptable.” Once again to her credit, Jean-Pierre dismissed him.
In contrast, The Washington Post’s Tyler Pager had a surprisingly tense exchange about the putrid White House communications strategy on the documents (click “expand”):
PAGER: David Axelrod, former top staffer for President — President Obama, wrote in a piece to the — for The Atlantic that the “Biden and the White House seemingly have violated every precept—speed, transparency, contrition—of crisis communications” in the relation to the way that you have communicated about the classified documents found in his possession. I’m wondering if you agree with that assessment and your take on that.
JEAN-PIERRE: Well, look, I know David Axelrod very well. I was part of his — I was — I was part of his program that he had at University of Chicago and I respect him wholeheartedly and got to work with him during the Obama-Biden — Obama-Biden administration. He has his opinion. I’m not going to make judgments on that and — and he’s allowed to — to — to share what he thinks. But I will say this and — and I’m going to be very careful and prudent here. And we take — we take classified information and classified documents very seriously. And the President’s team is fully cooperating with the current legal process at this time. I’m just not going to say anything more.
PAGER: This is not a question about the handling of classified documents. It’s a question of communications.
JEAN-PIERRE: I know. I just — I just answered your question. I just answered your question.
PAGER: So, you have no comment —
JEAN-PIERRE: I — I —
PAGER: — on whether the White House —
JEAN-PIERRE: — I literally just answered your question.
PAGER: — but —
JEAN-PIERRE: I— but I did. I did.
PAGER: — the question is about whether or not you think the White House has done a good job communicating —
JEAN-PIERRE: No, but I answered the first part. I answered it in my first part, which is, I know David, Axelrod. He has every right to have his opinion and I’ve known him for a long time. I’ve worked closely with him and that’s all I’m going to say.
Fox’s Peter Doocy also did his thing. After a question on the disconnect between Biden wanting to “speak directly to the American people” on infrastructure but not Friday as “some big cities are bracing potentially…for riots,” Doocy had a series of documents questions.
Even though Jean-Pierre had the same response (“I would refer you to the White House counsel’s office”), Doocy nonetheless asked whether “any more classified documents” were “located” and why the administration has “insist[ed] that the President self-reported the classified materials if his lawyers initially called the White House and not the Justice Department.”
And at the end of the briefing, Time’s Brian Bennett made a rare appearance (click “expand”):
BENNETT: Thank you, Karine. I want to go back to November 2. Why didn’t the President go public on November 2 when he found out from his lawyers that classified documents were found in his —
JEAN-PIERRE: I would refer you to the White House counsel, who is — who has — who has put out a — a statements [sic] on this — on their timeline and talking — speaking through this — my colleagues from the White House counsel has had conversations with many of you answering questions on this. I would refer you to the White House counsel.
BENNETT: Wasn’t there a time before there was federal investigation when he could have gone public —
JEAN-PIERRE: I would —
BENNETT: — at that point? Why — why wouldn’t —
JEAN-PIERRE: — I would refer you to my — the White House counsel.
To see the relevant transcript from January 27’s briefing (including questions from reporter in Bloomberg’s seat about TikTok and the Daily Mail’s Nikki Schwab on Elon Musk and Hunter Biden), click here.