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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shared a testy exchange with Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Tuesday after the journalist asked her if she believes Donald Trump stole the 2016 election.
Doocy was pressing Jean-Pierre amid GOP-led outrage over President Joe Biden‘s repeat attacks against ‘MAGA Republicans,’ the pro-Donald Trump faction of the party who believe the ex-president’s lies that the 2020 race was stolen from him.
He pointed to her prior comments suggesting that Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton, and casting doubt on GOP Governor Brian Kemp’s narrow win in Georgia in 2018.
The Biden administration official blasted Doocy’s comparison as ‘ridiculous.’
Doocy began the exchange asking, ‘So we’re all in agreement that it is incorrect to say the 2020 election was stolen, what about the 2016 election?’
‘I’m not gonna go back to where we were or what happened in 2016. We’re going to focus on the here and now,’ Jean-Pierre replied.
‘We’re going to focus on what’s happening today – this inflection point that the president pointed out very clearly and very decisively, in a few speeches, about what the country needs to do at this time to bring the country together.’
Doocy pushed again, grilling Jean-Pierre on the supposed ‘new attention’ being cast on GOP election fraud claims when she herself tweeted about a stolen election in December 2016.
‘Oh, I knew this was coming,’ the Biden official replied dryly. ‘I was waiting, Peter, when you were going to ask me that question.’
Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre got into a heated exchange with Fox News journalist Peter Doocy over her past tweet suggesting Donald Trump ‘stole’ his election
Doocy was asking about President Joe Biden’s recent slew of verbal attacks against ‘MAGA Republicans’
She criticized the Fox News reporter from her podium after he brought up the pair of old tweets.
‘Let’s be really clear. That – that comparison that you made is just ridiculous,’ Jean-Pierre said.
She cut across Doocy’s interruptions, telling him: ‘Well you’re asking me a question, let me answer it.’
‘I was talking specifically at the time of what was happening with voting rights, and the – what was in danger of voting rights. That’s what I was speaking to at the time,’ Jean-Pierre said.
‘Here’s the thing: I have said Governor Kemp won the election in Georgia. I’ve been clear about that. I have said President Trump won the election of 2016. And I’ve been clear about that.’
She referenced the January 6 attack on the US Capitol last year as a sign of today’s higher stakes.
‘That was the danger that we were seeing at the time. That’s what the president has called out, and that’s what he’s going to continue to call it out,’ Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre told Doocy that his comparison to her 2016 tweet was ‘ridiculous’
The journalist also referenced a 2020 tweet by Jean-Pierre accusing Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp of having ‘stole’ his narrow 2016 victory from progressive Stacey Abrams
‘So yes, when you have MAGA Republicans, a(sp) extreme part of Republicans who who just deny or do not want to really say what exactly happened on that day – or say it was a protest when it clearly was not a peaceful protest – that’s not what we saw on that day. Yes, the President is going to call that out.’
It comes after Biden made several lively public appearances over the last two weeks in a bid to energize the Democratic base ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Each of them has also heavily featured attacks on Trump’s base of Republicans, who Biden nicknamed ‘Trumpies’ during a Labor Day speech in Wisconsin.
‘I want to be very clear up front: Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with mainstream Republicans my whole career,’ the president said on Monday.
‘But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards – full of anger, violence, hate, and division.’
Later, at a second event in Pittsburgh, Biden tore into MAGA once again, saying of Trump: ‘It’s clear which way he wants to look. It’s clear which way the new MAGA Republicans are,’ calling them ‘very extreme.’
‘You can’t call yourself a democracy when you don’t count the votes that people legitimately cast,’ Biden said.
