Since Joe Biden came into office, his senility and lack of control have been obvious. Whether speaking about his wife or his staff, there was always an air that the president wasn’t making the final decisions. Have those handlers started to lose control of the situation, though?
Karine Jean-Pierre, perhaps one of the administration’s worst hires, tied herself into knots on Thursday attempting to explain away a blatant lie told by Biden. Reporter Edward Lawrence asked about a recent comment in which the president proclaimed inflation was “skyrocketing” when he came into office. In reality, inflation was under two percent and had been for nearly a year on the day Biden took office.
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Watching Jean-Pierre try to spin this one was painful to watch.
Fox Business’s @EdwardLawrence: “But the President didn’t say the supply chain was being disrupted. He said inflation was skyrocketing.”
KJP: “But that’s what he was referring to, right? That’s what was going on. Those were the things that were happening right before us. The… pic.twitter.com/GZzfDdUFEX
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024
LAWRENCE: But the President didn’t say the supply chain was being disrupted. He said inflation was skyrocketing.
JEAN-PIERRE: But that’s what he was referring to, right? That’s what was going on. Those were the things that were happening right before us. The pandemic, it was taking thousands of lives a day when he took office, schools were closed, or a majority of schools were closed. Businesses were closing and we had a supply chain that was disrupted. And so, that’s what the President was speaking to and laying out, and then, inflation, down the road became even more, increased even more because of the war that Russia had taken on into Ukraine.
How could that be “what he was referring to?” Inflation is not the supply chain, and when one proclaims that inflation was “skyrocketing” that doesn’t actually mean a litany of other issues that Jean-Pierre and her comms team cooked up in their spin room. It’s such an obvious falsehood that any defense only makes the situation look all the more ridiculous. A better excuse would have been to say he misspoke, as everyone is prone to do at times, but that would require admitting fault. Biden’s ego won’t allow that.
When Jean-Pierre was pressed further, she managed to make even less sense. I’m going to let my friend Curtis Houck’s transcription stand on this one as I just don’t have the desire to fry my brain typing out the press secretary’s ramblings.
Fox Business’s @EdwardLawrence: “But…the Fed’s supply chain measure actually went down in — in November at that time. So — so is the President being honest about inflation?”
KJP: “The President has said — what he said what he saw when he was — when he took — when he took… pic.twitter.com/YEvAZB0mqq
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 11, 2024
What you are seeing is a team of handlers who have lost control. They can give Biden all the talking points they want. They can blow his teleprompter font up even further and put pictures in his notecards. They can tell him which reporters to call on during pressers. It doesn’t matter at this point, though. The president is so far gone mentally and his dishonesty is so engrained that he can’t be trusted to toe the line any longer.
Just a day before this latest instance, Univision released an interview with Biden (full of “holy crap” moments) in which he repeated several lies, leaving his team scrambling. The day before that, he introduced a new falsehood about his childhood while in Wisconsin. The old man has gone rogue. He’s just saying whatever comes to his mind, and it’s all bad for his handlers.
There’s an entire campaign season in front of the administration, and Biden can’t even swing his arms when he walks, much less keep a coherent mental front. It’s a tough scene for the Democratic Party.
As to Jean-Pierre, I can’t imagine she has much shame left to give, but she can’t be happy with how this is playing out. Day after day, she’s expected to take to the briefing room podium and defend the most egregious nonsense in politics. That has to be exhausting. Not that I feel sorry for her or anything.
