For the second day in a row, the Associated Press opened the questioning Tuesday of the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre by lobbing a puke-tastic softball so she could bash Donald Trump. This time, it was the insane claim that illegal immigration makes America...well, great. And, in contrast to all this, Fox’s Peter Doocy stood alone on the border crisis.
AP White House reporter Will Weissert had the hot take on Monday about Sunday’s Transgender Day of Visibility, but it was his colleague Josh Boak who this time opened the Jean-Pierre portion by inviting her to explain why illegal immigration has helped create a roaring American economy.
Boak first alluded to Trump’s latest application of the word “bloodbath” — this time, to describe illegal immigrant crime under President Biden — before putting a positive spin on the tens of millions who’ve illegal crossed the border and roam freely:
[O]n Friday, we’re going to get jobs figures and past jobs reports have shown that immigrants are helping the U.S. economy. Is the view of this administration that the inflow of immigrants do more to strengthen the United States or hurt the United States? Does it do more?
Yes, that’s right. Boak wants you to think this has made America great.
Jean-Pierre’s initial response was a classic indication that what Boak fired off was a joke: “So, Josh, I appreciate that question, and I think it’s an important question.”
Adding there’s been “clearly awful rhetoric from the other side”, Jean-Pierre’s lengthy word salad also conflated illegal immigration with legal immigration as she proclaimed Biden and his regime “know immigrants strengthen our country and our economy” and said Biden believes we need “an economy that works for everyone”, presumably including illegals.
Doocy actually set the tone before Boak and Jean-Pierre as he asked John Kirby this: “John, there’s another case of somebody who was in this country illegally allegedly murdering the young woman, this time in Michigan. Her name was Ruby Garcia. Donald Trump is out there now calling this Biden’s border bloodbath. What do you call it?
Kirby did get political by invoking the Senate deal and blaming Republicans for not holding a vote, but he at least conceded while he hadn’t heard of Garcia, “that’s just terrible news and our thoughts and prayers obviously go to the family of Miss Garcia” as “that’s kind of news no family ever wants to get ever.”
This led Doocy to point out the obvious, which was the Senate deal is dead. A brief back and forth ensued with Kirby attempting to play Captain Optimist, but Doocy wasn’t having it because “there are real problems at the border” with 140,000 known gottaways posing a national security threat.
Doocy wrapped with this: “[A]s the person in charge of presenting — preventing a terrorist attack in the homeland, does President Biden think that some of these border crossers could be in the United States right now plotting a terrorist attack against Americans?”
Kirby gave the standard answer one would expect any presidential spokesman to give: “The President’s confident that....we’re doing everything we can to be as vigilant as we can to ensure the safety and security of the American people here at home.”
With Jean-Pierre, the bloodbath hubbub returned after Boak with softballs from CBS’s Nancy Cordes (click “expand”):
CORDES: Going back to the bloodbath question, the former President used that terminology a week or two ago, but is talking about it again today. What’s the White House reaction to the use of that term bloodbath?
JEAN-PIERRE: I’m going to be really mindful here because it is — president — the — the — obviously, the former president is also a candidate here, so wanna follow the law with the Hatch Act — but we have to denounce our responses. We have to denounce any — any violent rhetoric that we hear, certainly from our leaders — right — that tears our country apart. It could tear up our country apart and puts our fellow Americans in harm’s way — in danger, so we have to denounce that. And look, you know, I think and we think that the American people wants [sic] to see the country coming together. that’s what they want. They want to — they want to make sure that we respect our democracy. They want to make sure that we respect the rule of law. That’s what they want. And so, that is what the President’s going to continue to fight for. I — we’re going to any type of violent rhetoric, we’re going to denounce that. It doesn’t matter who it comes from. We’re going to denounce it.
CORDES: Does the White House believe that there is a bloodbath taking place or a wave of migrant crime?
JEAN-PIERRE: Look — um — we’ve been very clear about — I just laid out to Josh, when it comes to immigrants, how important they are to the fabric of this country, how important they are to the strength of this country, to our economy, and that continues to — to be true, right? That’s something that this President believes, and we’ve always called out any — if there is any form of — of violence that — that could be caused by one person — right — that we may have seen, we call that out as well — and — and that is always important to do. But, in this instance, it is used to — in the way that this violent rhetoric is being used, it is being used to tear our country apart. That’s how it’s being used, and we have to — we can’t allow that, right? This is not what Americans want to see. Americans want to see us bringing the country together and — and so, that form of rhetoric it is. It’s not helpful to us, so we’re going to continue to call that out, and we’re going to be very, very clear about that. But this — you know, if — if a violent act is — it happens, as we have seen — um and someone is killed, we want to make sure that — that You know, we’ve got to condemn that and want to make sure that the law comes into place and we let the law enforcement on the ground deal with that, but to denounce entire community, we can’t allow that. We have to denounce that any type of violent rhetoric.
Having sat through these softballs, Doocy dropped a devastating receipt: “So, when Donald Trump is talking about a bloodbath, it is violent rhetoric. What was it when Joe Biden said in 2020, we — ‘what we can’t let happen is let this primary become a negative bloodbath’?”
Try and follow this mess of an answer from Jean-Pierre: “So, I’m going to be really mindful and careful about Donald Trump, but if you read — because he is a — he is a candidate — we’re talking about the 2024 election. You should read — hit — what he said in its context, so you got to read what he said in context.”
Doocy clapped back with a helping of attitude: “Bloodbath is an ugly word when Trump uses it. What is it when Biden uses it?”
Jean-Pierre instructed Doocy that he should have “asked me the question in context of what it was said — right — and what the — what it was said when he said that — right — in his remarks in his speech, right?”
Thus, she argued, he was “being disingenuous.”
An incredulous Doocy returned fire then showed respect by letting Jean-Pierre drone on. Her impeccably lazy defense as to why Joe Biden is allowed to use the word “bloodbath” but Donald Trump can’t? January 6 (click “expand”):
DOOCY: I’m reading a direct quote from Joe Biden. “What we can’t let happen is let this primary become a negative bloodbath.”
JEAN-PIERRE: He’s talking about — he was talking about a group of people — a group of people. That’s what he’s talking about. What the President was talking about during the primary was not to allow it to be — the words — and — and the primary and that election to become negative. Two different — two different things.
DOOCY: Okay!
JEAN-PIERRE: They’re not the same. They’re not the same — and your question is disingenuous. And so, look, I’m going to be really mindful here. I’ve got to be really careful. We have to denounce violent rhetoric, which — wherever it comes from — a former leader, we have to denounce that because we saw what happened on January 6. We saw what happened there — when you have a mob of 2,000 people go to the Capitol because they didn’t believe in free — the free and fair election that just happened months prior because of violent rhetoric. You got to denounce that. That’s not what leaders should be doing.
To see the relevant transcript from the April 2 briefing (as well as anti-Israel questions about the deadly strikes that left numerous World Central Kitchen workers dead), click here.
