Mark Garrison, the Charlotte, North Carolina, radio host whose interview with Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday made headlines when the White House press secretary abruptly ended the call, said he was surprised by her response to his questions.
KJP got testy when Garrison, the news director for WBT, asked point blank whether President Biden has dementia—a question she found “incredibly offensive.”
“Let me be very clear about this: For the past several years, the president’s physician has laid out . . . in a comprehensive way the president’s health. This is a president, if you watch him every day, if you really pay attention to his record and what he has done, you will see exactly how focused he has been on the American people, how historic his actions have been,” Jean-Pierre said.
After reiterating that she found the question “incredibly insulting,” she asked to move on, so Garrison did.
"How does Mr. Biden win votes when people don't have as much disposable income?" he wondered.
“He understands how difficult it is for Americans who are sitting around their kitchen table every month trying to figure out what they’re going to pay for. You have to remember when the president walked into this administration, multiple crises were happening: there was COVID, there was the economy that was in a tailspin because of the last administration, because of what President Trump left us with,” she replied.
“Now you’re asking me about gas prices. The president took action on gas prices,” KJP continued. “Let’s not forget Russia’s invasion on Ukraine skyrocketed prices of gas and because the president took action, we see we are in a different place than we were in gas prices. Eggs, milk, seafood products — all the important groceries, those costs have gone down because of what this president has been able to do.”
After wrapping up her response, she wished the host an “amazing, amazing day” and abruptly hung up, which was "not a good look for KJP," as Rebecca reported.
Wow. Karine Jean-Pierre just hung up on a North Carolina radio show after being asked whether Joe Biden has dementia and about the bad economy.
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) March 26, 2024
pic.twitter.com/jSUnAWkCvs
Speaking to Fox News's Laura Ingraham about the interview, Garrison explained that it was the White House that reached out to them to set up the call since the president was coming to The Tar Heel State.
"And I knew, as you know, doing interviews through the years, you’re going to get a lot of talking points, so I thought if I could just ask a couple of questions, maybe we would make a little news, maybe get a soundbite out of her," he said. "So I just decided to ask her about all the concern — here in North Carolina, even 45 percent of Democrats are concerned about Biden’s mental state. So I thought, OK, I brought that up to her. She somewhat dismissed that. And then I just said, 'Okay, well, does he have dementia?' And I was surprised that she was so offended."
The White House pushed back on claims that Jean-Pierre essentially hung up on the host, arguing the press secretary "had multiple back-to-back interviews with radio stations who were each offered seven minutes. Once the agreed-upon time was over, she called in to the next interview so everyone could get their full time."
According to the statement, which Ingraham read, WBT "chose not to air the full interview and instead artificially attached a sound effect that our phones do not make when calls end”—a claim Garrison disputed.
"We don't add sound effects to news stories. When she hit the button to disconnect, we got a dial tone. We didn't add any drama to it," he said.