During the White House press briefing, a reporter asked if the cocaine found at the White House belonged to the Biden family and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not have it.
Video:
Reporter: Can you say once and for all whether or not the cocaine belonged to the Biden family?
KJP: They weren’t there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, so asking that question is incredibly irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/lZJ4mOfZRY
—Acyn (@Acyn) July 7, 2023
Transcript provided to PoliticusUSA by the White House:
Q Hello. I wonder if you have any comments on recent crimes in Washington. Rates are rising. We lost an SIV candidate from Afghanistan in the most recent killings. Really tragic. I wonder what the White House has to say about this.
And then, second, sorry to talk about cocaine again. But there was a question yesterday during a press gag with Andrew Bates that was – I guess – he said he had – he didn’t – he was avoiding it because of the Hatch Act .
I ask again: can you say once and for all whether or not the cocaine belonged to the Biden family?
SP. JEAN-PIERRE: So, two or three things there. He mentioned the Hatch Act because he was asked about it in the Donald —
QYes.
SP. JEAN-PIERRE: — using Donald Trump. And so he was trying to be very careful.
Q Yeah. I didn’t do that, so –
SP. JEAN-PIERRE: All right, I hear you. But you ask me a question, so I answer it for you. And so, that’s why he talked about the Hatch Act. So I would – you know, you read the transcript and read the entire transcript so you could see exactly what he was trying to say. So that’s number one.
So we’re not avoiding the question; it is not true. We have answered this question, argued this question exhaustively over the past two days.
You know, there have been irresponsible reporting on the family, and – and so I have to call it here. And I was very clear. I made it clear two days ago when I was talking about it again and again because I was asked a question.
As you know — and the media have reported it — the Biden family was not there. They weren’t there. They were at Camp David. They weren’t there on Friday. They weren’t there on Saturday. They weren’t there on Sunday. They weren’t even there on Monday.
They returned on Tuesday. So asking this question is actually incredibly irresponsible. And–and I’ll leave it there.
It was an irresponsible question. The fact that the Bidens weren’t in the White House was reported in the original stories on Sunday. There is no reason to ask the question unless the intent is to feed a false narrative using the White House press briefing as a platform.
Republicans are desperate for a Biden scandal. Tim Scott has tried to blame the discovery of cocaine on President Biden before.
Reporters laughed as he was repeatedly questioned during the White House briefing.
It’s not going the way Republicans thought it would.
The person who is probably sweating bullets right now is not a member of the Biden family, but the one who brought a bag of cocaine to the White House.
Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t take absurd questions on this, and anyone who asks such a reckless question deserves to be challenged.
Jason is the editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason holds a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate studies focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association
