New Press Secretary, Same MRC Hate: May-June 2024

The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck led the ritual bashing of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre throughout May -- then took most of June off.

Curtis Houck is the Media Research Center’s resident basher of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — having done this for years — while he also lionizes right-wing reporters at her briefings — particularly his mancrush, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. In his writeup of the May 1 briefing, Houck cheered that those biased right-wing reporters played gotcha with Jean-Pierre over campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war:

Before being shamed into speaking on-camera Thursday to the American people about the dangerous anti-Semitic hooligans who’ve thrown college campus into chaos, Wednesday’s White House press briefing was dominated by numerous reporters — including Fox’s Peter Doocy, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann, and even NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez — pressing the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre on why Biden hasn’t been more public in denouncing these scenes.

The initial questions were rather pedestrian. After AP’s Zeke Miller asked “[w]hy haven’t we heard directly from the President”, he was followed by ABC’s Karen Travers wondering whether “anyone from the administration been in touch with…any of these universities that are seeing these protests”, CBS’s Weijia Jiang asking the same except with the NYPD, and NPR’s Mara Liasson inquiring as to how read in Biden is on the chaos.

Gutierrez finally called out what had been denials from Jean-Pierre about how much Biden knows and why he’s been out of sight aside from paper statements:

I wanted to follow up on a previous question that was asked. And, respectfully, you didn’t quite answer it. The question was, why hasn’t the President been more forceful in talking about the protests. You talk about how he’s talked about anti-Semitism. But specifically on the protest, why hasn’t the President been more forceful on that?

Jean-Pierre grew defensive, claiming she “hear[s] the question....but...the President has been the — one — the — no other president has spoken about anti-Semitism than this President.”

[...]

After having been ignored on Monday, she called on Doocy and, like always, he asked something no one else in the room had brought up:

Some of these encampments, they had a matching tents. We’re being told that there are professional outside agitators involved. We don’t know if they’re being paid to sow chaos by domestic folks or foreign entities. Does President Biden want his administration to find out who is funding some of these protests?

Our friend Nicole Silverio of the Daily Caller had it right when she tweeted the Jean-Pierre promptly “short-circuited”.

Houck started his writeup of the May 3 briefing by whining that a certain actor stopped by the briefing room:

Friday’s White House press briefing began with a distinct 2016 vibe as the Biden administration demanded it be taken seriously on the reelection front with Star Wars actor Mark Hamill surprising reporters ahead of May 4 (aka May the Fourth Be With You!) and a few dutifully complied by asking him questions despite the fact that, as we’d later learn, one hasn’t seen any of the movies.

Elsewhere, the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre faced her usual hardballs from the like of Fox colleagues Edward Lawrence on tax cuts and basic respect for laws on the books and then Peter Doocy on both-sides-ing anti-Semitism and Islamphobia, Jean-Pierre’s alma mater, and the now-famous UNC fraternity brothers.

Hamill led off with his surprise appearance and donning a pair of aviators to match the President before saying he “was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the President, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime” and listing off standard party talking points.

He then opened it up to questions after thanking The New York Times’s Peter Baker in the second row for his most recent book which was, naturally, an anti-Trump tome with wife Susan Glasser.

ABC’s Selina Wang seized the opportunity: “Thank you, Mark Hamill, for being here. What did you ask? What did you talk about with the President?”

After Hamill replied this was his first time visiting a White House on his own in the Oval and thus more special (as opposed to going in a group), CBS’s Weijia Jiang had the other question: 

JIANG: Did President Biden bring up Star Wars to you, sir?

HAMILL: Well, you know, I called him Mr President. He said, you can call me Joe and I said, “can I call you Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi?”

Jiang returned to this topic during her Q&A with a genuine question about why Hamill came to the White House, but Jean-Pierre didn’t like her tone and it quickly devolved into a mini-roast of the CBS correspondent for admitting she’s never watched the movies (click “expand”):

Houck, of course, made sure to mancrush over his favorite biased reporter:

Doocy Time began with this both-sidesism that, if it were done by a Republican president, would trigger liberal media-wide excoriations: “So, in the President’s remarks yesterday, he’s talking about Islamophobia on campuses. Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric on campuses. Does he think Islamophobia is just as big of a problem on campus as anti-Semitism?”

Jean-Pierre shamelessly wouldn’t fully rebut that and instead remained in neutral with a standard word salad about Bide being able “to call out all forms of hate, always” and opposing protests that aren’t “within the law”.

Doocy next used Jean-Pierre’s own words against her when noting no one had asked her about the fact that anti-Semitic protest hotbed Columbia University is Jean-Pierre’s alma mater.

Pathetically, Jean-Pierre mocked Doocy for having done “some research”[.]

[...]

Doocy closed by being the first reporter to bring up in the briefing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who “saved an American flag from an angry mob of protesters” and there was “a GoFundMe where people can donate to throw them a rager.”

Amazingly, Doocy asked if Biden “would...donate” to which Jean-Pierre was incredulous: “You never disappoint, my friend.”

Houck continued to cheer his right-wing buddies asking gotcha questions about the protests in his writeup of the May 6 briefing:

In case you missed it, Monday’s White House press briefing was dominated by questions about Hamas supposedly agreeing to a ceasefire deal that, as we would quickly find out, was one they more or less concocted on their own (as opposed to one backed by Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and the U.S.), so Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich made a point to wonder whether the Biden regime still wants Israel to win the war.

“John, noting everything that you’ve said about the concerns expressed by the U.S., about the risk to Palestinians in Gaza with a full-scale operation, is the U.S. still aligned with Israel in its intention to eliminate the terrorist threat posed by Hamas,” Heinrich wondered to national security spokesman John Kirby.

[...]

After he said the administration’s examining it, Heinrich questioned whether it’s “still a good idea to try to negotiate with terrorists”. Kirby countered that, unfortunately, “you gotta negotiate with who you got to negotiate to get people back with their families.”

Heinrich closed whether she began with concerns about the U.S. supporting “Israel’s intention to eliminate Hamas.” Kirby didn’t back down and said Israel has the “right and responsibility to go after the Hamas threat — to eliminate that threat” that inflicted such harm on their citizens.

The Fox correspondent also got in a few questions to Jean-Pierre on the pro-Hamas encampments on college campuses. After a “no” on the possibility that Biden would “get out there and talk to students,” Heinrich asked about whether President Biden and the administration would support a dismantling of a the (terrorist sympathizing) camp at the George Washington University[.]

Houck offered no evidence that any of the protesters were explicitly “pro-Hamas.”

Houck spent his writeup of the May 16 briefing complaining that there was discussion of football player Harrison Butker’s borderline-misogynistic commencement speech:

ABC reporter Karen Travers used her round of Q&A during Thursday’s White House press briefing to invite a willing accomplice in Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to join the liberal media mob against Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for his alleged crime of giving a pro-family, pro-life, pro-parenting commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

“I want to ask you about the topic that’s getting a lot of attention,” Travers began, adding Butker’s “facing criticism for his recent commencement address where he told female graduates that the most important title a woman can hold is homemaker.”

Fact-check: Pants on fire. Butker did not, in fact, say that. Here’s a transcript of his full speech, but here’s a key line: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

Seems like a distinction without a difference, but Houck wasn’t done whining:

Travers’s softball wasn’t done: “He was critical about surrogacy, IVF, and Pride Month, and he also criticized the President for being a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Has the President seen those comments? Does he have a reaction to that?”

Jean-Pierre had the gall to initially bat it down by saying Biden’s “been pretty busy today, so I haven’t had a chance to — to focus on this particular issue” and she herself had only seen “some reports on it.”

Nonetheless, Jean-Pierre pivoted to implicitly torching Butker and argued Biden won’t “back away from supporting women and reproductive rights, reproductive health care” because “it is important to fight for all of our freedoms”.

She obviously had to throw in the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and argued pro-lifers support putting women “in a position to not get the health care that they need” and “causing chaos”.

[...]

Travers offered a follow-up to further attack Butker and implicitly accuse him of being a partisan tool: “As the President gets ready to give his own commencement address, does he think a message like that is appropriate at a commencement address?”

A May 17 post by Houck was a lazy summary of “the smartest and dumbest questions” over a week of briefings. Unsurprisingly, Houck thinks most of the “smartest” questions came from biased right-wing reporters like Philip Wegmann, Edward Lawrence of Fox Business and — of course — his mancrush, Peter Doocy.

Houck praised a non-right-wing reporter for asking right-wing-style questions at the May 22 briefing:

With President Biden on the road Monday and Tuesday then a joint press conference Thursday with the Kenyan president, reporters jammed a lot of questions into Wednesday’s press briefing to the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre. Thankfully, NBC’s Peter Alexander woke up ready to do his job with probing questions to the press secretary, even if they’re on the same side of the aisle. The topic was even more surprising: student loan debt cancelations.

Alexander went about it like the man who usually sits next to him (but not on this day) in Fox’s Peter Doocy. Alexander first pointed out she “opened today’s briefing by talking about the latest student loan cancelations” and asked her to respond to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) calling it “a massive wealth transfer for Americans who did not attend college to those who did” and “a shameful play to buy more votes”.

[...]

Alexander then unleashed his hardball:

[W]hat then is the White House’s message to those Americans who did not attend college for a variety of reasons, perhaps — including perhaps that they didn’t want to take on all the debt that went with it right now that they feel like, in some form, they are responsible for allowing those who did not to pay their fair share?

Jean-Pierre insisted this was proof Biden is “building an economy that leaves no one behind”, which Alexander immediately interjected with a reality check: “Are those people being left behind? The ones who didn’t get support because they didn’t go to college?”

The press secretary wanted nothing to do with this and plowed ahead with her world divorced from reality except for those whom the Biden camp needs to secure reelection. To his credit, Alexander didn’t back down[.]

Houck offered no evidence that Jean-Pierre and Alexander are “on the same side of the aisle’; perhaps he assumes that any reporter who’s not a partisan right-winger like his mancrush Peter Doocy is a partisan Democrat. Though Doocy apparently wasn’t there, Houck made sure to give some love to his partisan Fox News colleagues:

A few minutes later, the Fox Business Network’s Grady Trimble returned to student loans, wondering why those who took out loans are, in the words of the undersecretary of education, “due forgiveness”.

“Everybody has a different story as to why they need student loans. Everybody has different reasoning as to why they want to go to college. I cannot speak for everyone,” Jean-Pierre mumbled, leading Trimble to ask it again.

Jean-Pierre doubled down about this “crushing financial burden” and insisted a “majority of Americans agree” with the regime on mass forgiveness. When Trimble pointed out a Fox “poll show[s] more than half disagree with using tax dollars” and then asked if inflation is made worse by these moves, Jean-Pierre stood pat.

Trimble’s Fox colleague Jacqui Heinrich had the Fox News seat and closed the briefing by stating the obvious that one could see Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) reintroducing of the failed Senate border bill as “a cynical attempt to try to show Americans that Democrats care about the border”.

Fortunately for Houck, he was able to serve up some mancrushing to the man himself (with help from another non-right-wing reporter) in his writeup of the May 28 briefing:

Tuesday marked the only scheduled White House press briefing of the week ahead of President Biden’s European trip to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, so plenty of anti-Israel questions flew in the wake of a deadly strike inside Rafa (including this from CBS’s Ed O’Keefe). Unfortunately, O’Keefe and Fox’s Peter Doocy were the only reporters in the nearly 25 minutes (24:43) of Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre taking questions to invoke the upcoming Hunter Biden trial.

O’Keefe went first after he had Jean-Pierre confirm Tuesday was the only formal briefing: “[G]iven something that’s scheduled to begin on Monday, I’m curious, how does the President plan to monitor the federal trial of his son, which is set to begin on Monday?”

[...]

A few minutes later Doocy drilled down on the trial with a curious visit the President made over the weekend: “[W]hy did President Biden have a private meeting with a witness who plans to testify in court against his son?”

Asked to “say more”, Doocy replied he brought this up because “Hallie Biden is a key government witness who allegedly disposed of a gun that Hunter is accused of buying illegally” and “President Biden was at her house this week.”

Jean-Pierre feigned outrage at Doocy’s supposed insensitivity because this visit was only to mark the ninth anniversary of the President’s son Beau’s passing and Hallie is Beau’s widow (who also, for a time, was in a weird romantic fling with Hunter)[.]

[...]

Doocy stuck to the issue of Hunter Biden by mentioning the fact that former stripper and Hunter Biden ex-girlfriend Lunden Roberts will be releasing a book about her time with the now-First Family and her daughter Navy Joan Roberts, whom the President spent years denying she existed.

In turn, Doocy wondered whether the President has even Navy Joan, but Jean-Pierre ducked: “I don’t have anything to share.”

Prior to the Hunter questions, Doocy first had a blunt query: “Are you guys here at the White House in full-blown freak out mode?”

“What are you talking about? What are you talking about,” a flustered Jean-Pierre replied, to which Doocy explained was merely him quoting a Politico story about Biden’s bad polling causing a Democrat Party [sic] “freak out”[.]

Houck also whined that other non-right-wing reporters “had questions from the left on Vice President Kamala Harris and undermining the Supreme Court’s legitimacy.” But he also praised how “Fox News Radio’s Jared Halpern had an interesting exchange earlier with national security spokesman and frequent Jean-Pierre crutch John Kirby about the expensive but failing pier in Gaza constructed by the U.S. military.”

Slow month in June

Between a dearth of White House press briefings and overall laziness, the Media Research Center’s Curtis Houck turned in only one Karine Jean-Pierre-bashing briefing writeup during the entire month of June, a summary post on June 19. He started off by whining that Jean-Pierre called out misleading videos that make President Biden look senile:

With it being summer and the first presidential debate only eight days away, President Biden has been and will soon go into hibernation with trips to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and Camp David in Maryland, leaving only Monday and Tuesday for White House press briefings.

However, the press corps made it count with hardballs and softballs on what the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre called “cheap fakes” videos and some whacks from the left on Biden’s new executive order for illegal immigrants.

The Associated Press had Will Weissert play Biden tool on Monday with this question about the latest string of videos showing a decline in Biden’s mental faculties: “[T]here seems to be a sort of rash of videos that have been edited to make the President appear especially frail or mentally confused. I’m wondering if the — the White House is especially worried about the fact that this appears to be a pattern that we’re seeing more — more often?”

Sure enough, this set the table for Jean-Pierre to uncork this new term of “cheap fakes”[.]

Houck made sure to show love to biased right-wing reporters in the room: “Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence grilled Jean-Pierre on the struggling Biden economy while Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann sought confirmation on whether the President would pardon son Hunter.” He also whined about Jean-Pierre defending a Biden executive order protecting some undocumented immigrants: “Anita Powell of taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) lamented this expansion of legal status for illegal immigrants married to Americans would be difficult to bring to fruition because, well, paperwork is xenophobic or something,” adding:

Jean-Pierre gave up by saying in part that this discussion was why “the way to actually deal with this is to have a comprehensive immigration legislation — is for Congress to do their jobs and to move forward.”

Wang’s ABC colleague Karen Travers had her own softball: “[H]as the President met with any families that would be impacted that could benefit from what he’s going to announce today. Has he been moved personally by any stories that then led him to take action?”

Paperwork is not xenophobic, of course, though Houck certainly seems to be.