Jean-Pierre Hits Back At Daily Show’s Jon Stewart Slam on Biden — Torches ‘Flatly Wrong’ Hur Report It Was Based On
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hit back at Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s commentary slamming President Joe Biden based on a “flatly wrong” special counsel report.
Stewart returned on Monday night’s edition of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, which he will be hosting on a part-time basis after having retired from the show for several years.
In one extended bit, Stewart slammed Biden and former President Donald Trump over their respective ages, and discussed special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of sensitive documents, which was chock full of damaging asides about Biden’s age and his memory, and which Biden and his allies hotly dispute.
At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason surprised KJP with Stewart’s criticism, then asked if the White House response has been as strong as it should have been:
JEFF MASON: Is the president a fan of The Daily Show?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Oh! (taken aback) I was not expecting that. I — I would have to ask him.
JEFF MASON: Did he watch Jon Stewart last night?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: (laughs) Sounds like you did, Jeff. Was it good?
JEFF MASON: He was pretty critical of the president. Oh, really? The former president. And I guess my question was —
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: He said this about President Biden?
JEFF MASON: He was critical of both.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. Oh, you said as long as well as the former, I — gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
JEFF MASON: And so my kind of follow up to that more jokey question is just does the White House feel like it made the right decision, putting President Biden out on Thursday night and to have the press conference that he did? And related to that? Do you feel like the White House’s response, pushing back against the report, was as quick and as robust as you would have liked it to be?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I’m assuming this is responding to Jon of The Daily Show.
JEFF MASON: Partly, and other ctritics as well.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. Okay. Okay. So look, you — I think and we believe — the president went out on Thursday on the day that the report came out. It was important, we believe it was important for the, for the American people to hear directly from this president and to lay out in a very forceful way, what we thought about, about the special counsel report, what he thought about the special counsel report.
And not only that, he took your questions. He stood there and took questions from all of you. I think that’s important. It’s important, we believe that’s important to to to to do, and then the next day, by the request of the White House Correspondents Association, which we obviously have a good relationship with and respect. We were asked to bring, to bring Ian Sams to the podium from, obviously the spokesperson from from the White House counsel. And he did and stood here for 45 minutes, approximately, and took questions.
And so I think we are going to do everything that we can, especially, as it relates, obviously, as it related to the special counsel report, which we believe. Let’s not forget, it said there is no there there. Right? It said that the the case is closed. So let’s, you know, that’s what they said. There’s nothing to prosecute. So we want to be really clear there.
But we also, the president’s going to stand and defend himself. The characterization, the way that report was characterized was not, not just me saying this. Legal experts on both sides said it was flatly wrong and it was gratuitous. And it was inappropriate.
And so the president’s going to defend himself and — to the American people and make that very, very clear. And so we believe, he believes he did the right thing. And, you know, we’re going to continue to to speak on this very, very loud and clear.
But anything specific related to the next steps and what happens, after after last week, certainly my, the White House counsel’s office can answer that more specifically.
Watch above via The White House.