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Karine Jean-Pierre Has Particularly Embarrassing Flub About Justice Thomas

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  July 18, 2022 6:30 PM

During Monday's press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had a particularly embarrassing flub about Justice Clarence Thomas. While criticizing his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson, which is just that, a concurrence, she referred to him as Judge Thompson.

Her comments came when taking a question from the Wall Street Journal's Ken Thomas, as Jean-Pierre spoke to "as we know, from, um, the Dobbs decision, uh, one of the things that we, uh, saw from uh, from Judge Thompson is they're looking to go further, whether it's privacy, contraception, or, uh, marriage equality."

Our friends at Twitchy picked up on some of the reactions to this bizarre and embarrassing flub when it comes to the White House press secretary getting a Supreme Court justice's name and title wrong. Many pointed to how it speaks to consistent incompetency from Jean-Pierre and the administration as a whole.

The press secretary began Monday's presser by criticizing Republicans, "extremist" pro-life groups, and state pro-life laws. Before taking questions, Jean-Pierre claimed that "it's becoming clearer by the day that congressional Republicans want to strip away rights, starting with a nationwide abortion ban and moving on to marriage equality and contraception," though she had no proof for those latter issues. 

She repeated this point during an exchange with Fox News' Peter Doocy as they discussed Vice President Kamala Harris' remarks during the NAACP convention earlier on Monday when she compared slavery to abortion. 

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"Now we have to mindful about contraception, we have to be mindful about marriage equality, because they have made it really clear, these extreme Republicans, ultra MAGA Republicans have made it clear that is what they're going after next," despite her failure to elaborate just how, exactly, they have have done that. 

This fear-mongering Democratic talking point is contagious. In addition to the White House's narrative, the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday held a hearing on "What's Next: The Threat to Individual Freedoms in a Post-Roe World," one of five pro-abortion hearings in seven days' time. 

There does not appear to be a proposed law at the state or federal level that will take away the right to same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, as Brooke Midgon reported for The Hill earlier on Monday, "House to vote on Respect for Marriage Act in response to Clarence Thomas opinion."

In a move that is at best laziness, Midgon never clarifies herself that Justice Thomas' opinion was a concurrence, though it is referred to as that in a quote from Rep. Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Midgon also fails to point out that the official opinion of the Court came from Justice Samuel Alito.

Justice Alito's opinion, as well as a concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, makes clear in several instances that the Dobbs decision only refers to abortion, and does not affect other privacy matters. 

"Judge Thompson" has been trending over Twitter on Monday.