White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was bombarded Friday with questions about why President Joe Biden did not speak out ahead of a possible government shutdown at midnight.
Biden has kept a low profile in the wake of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss, with one prominent Democrat accusing him of “quiet quitting.”
New questions have also arisen about his cognitive abilities after the publication of The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, a damning report suggesting its decline began years ago.
The president and his family returned to the White House last night after a midweek trip to Wilmington, Delaware, to attend church services marking the anniversary of the deaths of his first wife Neilia and infant daughter Naomi.
It was Jean-Pierre who issued a statement Thursday evening condemning Republicans — including newly elected President Donald Trump — for blowing up a bipartisan deal to fund the government throughout the new year.
During Friday’s abbreviated 36-minute news conference, Jean-Pierre fielded a series of questions about why the American people were not hearing directly from the president.
“We heard that message from you, but why don’t we hear it directly from the president? Why haven’t we seen or heard from President Biden?’ a reporter asked.
Jean-Pierre responded that “this is a strategy we have used many times before.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a barrage of questions Friday about why President Joe Biden did not speak out ahead of a possible government shutdown at midnight
“And this is something that Republicans in Congress, and especially in the House of Representatives, need to fix. They created this mess,” she scolded. ‘There was an agreement between both parties. It was.’
She was then pressed about why Biden had not appeared in front of the cameras to deliver this condemnation himself.
“He’s ready to make a bipartisan deal, that’s what he wants to see,” she said. “And you know, this is something that Republicans here should recognize.”
Another journalist asked the press secretary whether Biden’s involvement would “do more harm than good.”
‘I simply answered this question. I just got a formulation of that question,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president knows how to deal with Congress. It’s been around for a while, as you all know. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had this strategy.”
“It’s their mess to solve,” she repeated.
She was also asked whether Biden had contacted House Speaker Mike Johnson, to whom Jean-Pierre also assigned much of the blame.
Jean-Pierre also blamed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
President Joe Biden (left) and first lady Jill Biden (right) are photographed outside the White House on Friday ahead of a visit to a D.C. children’s hospital for Christmas programming
“I’ve answered this in so many ways, and I’m going to answer it now: We need to be very clear: Speaker Johnson created this mess and he needs to fix it,” she said.
She was then asked if the president was “leading.”
“The president is the president of the United States and he leads,” she replied. “And just to be clear, as it relates to this… we’ve done this strategy before, this is not new, where we’ve said Congress needs to deal with this. This is their main job to keep the government open.”
The reporter then asked, “To be clear, the strategy is for him to lead by staying in the background.”
“The strategy is that Congress, and Republicans in particular, need to do their job and go their own way and focus on the American people and not their billionaire friends,” she said.