President Joe Biden's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre got a bit turned around in what should have been an easy answer during Wednesday's White House press briefing, then tried again to peddle a revisionist version of history that doesn't pass muster in reality.
Asked to name President Biden's "top domestic priority," Jean-Pierre was not ready with a quick soundbite (or anything like it) in response. Instead, she did some of her usual verbal meandering without actually naming a priority, just something that's "important" to the president:
"Well we've always, we've always been very clear that his economic, clearly his economic policy is something that's uh, uh, important especially when he walked into this administration the economy was on its head uh because of the COVID response that was uh, um, uh that was not exis-, that was not existing- not is- uh, with the last administration."
DOOCY: "What is President Biden's top domestic priority?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 31, 2023
KJP: "His economic policy is something that's important...because of the COVID response that was not existing with the last administration." pic.twitter.com/frcCE5wPnx
This writer suspects the word she was hunting for was "nonexistent," but there are two larger issues to address.
First, Jean-Pierre's oft-repeated claim that she, Biden, and the entire West Wing have been "very clear" about priorities is simply not true.
Amid the White House's shifting blame game for rising prices — first denying inflation's existence, then brushing it off as "transitory" before blaming Putin and anyone but Biden — the president declared rather laughably that his "top domestic priority" is inflation and he's taking it "very seriously."
BIDEN: "I'm taking inflation very seriously and it's my top domestic priority." pic.twitter.com/8FcHuKCRTo
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 10, 2022
But after the Supreme Court rightly overturned the flawed legal reasoning in Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden pledged before the 2022 midterms that he would make sweeping (and radical) abortion legislation his top priority in 2023 if voters kept his party in power.
Biden's declaration about abortion policy drew the obvious question: which is the president's top priority – abortion or inflation? Well, at the time, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the apparent contradiction and...didn't have a good answer about Biden's priorities then either:
Karine Jean-Pierre refuses to name Biden's "top domestic priority." pic.twitter.com/f7nDA9TGnn
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 18, 2022
In terms of priorities... we still don't know. Clearly (allegedly) making inflation his main focus didn't ease high costs for Americans. Biden's subsequent attempt to float abortion as his main priority to keep Democrats in control of Congress didn't work either. So now he's back to the economy as his top domestic priority? We'll have to wait and see what's considered politically expedient enough to become a top priority next.
Second, Jean-Pierre still doesn't seem willing to acknowledge the reality that the Biden administration did take office with a preexisting COVID response she now denies ever existed. Dr. Fauci? He'd been working on COVID for months by the time Biden & Co. moved into the West Wing. Vaccines? Already created and set for distribution by the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. Pandemic protocols? We all remember "15 Days to Slow the Spread" and how lockdowns and closures swept across the country for months, upending the regular flow of 2020's presidential election. But, according to Jean-Pierre, a COVID response "was not existing" when Biden took office.
The likely reason why Jean-Pierre is reticent to commit to one specific top priority for Biden and his administration is because the president's poll numbers on critical issues are bleak. In general, Biden remains near his all-time low job approval rating. On his handling of the economy, he's scraping the bottom of his polling performance there too. Immigration? Don't bother looking, it's just as bad. Even on gun policy, another area Biden has given outsized attention and executive action to, Biden hasn't managed to impress Americans.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member