Stephen Colbert welcomed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre onto his Thursday CBS show where he lobbed several softballs her way including wondering how is the White House mending the relationship with the press and wondering how Joe Biden has been so successful.
Regretting how the previous administration treated the press, Colbert declared, “So, when—when—when-- y'all, you know, came into office 18 months ago, one of the things, the goals stated was, to kind of, repair the relationship between that press office and the press.”
Asking for a status update on that, Colbert continued, lamenting that some—presumably conservatives—refuse to play along with the White House, “How was that going and how do you do that when some members of the press won't agree on what reality is?”
For her part, Jean-Pierre portrayed her spin as fact, “Look, I think the way that I see it is my job, our job, is to make sure that we are delivering the facts, delivering what the president's agenda is, and that's our focus, and that's what we – we-- do every day.”
She proceeded to claim “we really worked -- have worked the last 18, 19 months to really repair that relationship” and to give the politically correct answer how the relationship between the White House and the press is just part of freedom of the press.
It must be nice to be part of a White House that gets mostly softballs from questioners, like the one that Colbert then lobbed her way:
Since you started, al-Zawahri was killed, gun control has passed, gas prices are now down below $4 a gallon, inflation has begun to ease, the PACT Act—the burn pit legislation was passed, massive climate bill is set to pass tomorrow, what is the key to making all that happen so fast? Is it you? Are you the reason why this has happened? Or is it the fact that the president has been in isolation with COVID for a lot of that?”
Being a good press secretary, Jean-Pierre gave all credit to Biden, but gas prices are still high, inflation is still bad, and the climate bill—called the Inflation Reduction Act—won’t reduce inflation. No wonder the White House has an easier relationship with the media than its predecessor.
This segment was sponsored by Angi
Here is a transcript for the August 11 show:
CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
8/12/2022
12:17 AM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: So, when—when—when-- y'all, you know, came into office 18 months ago, one of the things, the goals stated was, to kind of, repair the relationship between that press office and the press. How was that going and how do you do that when some members of the press won't agree on what reality is?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Some members of the press?
COLBERT: Some members of the press.
JEAN-PIERRE: Okay. Look, I think the way that I see it is my job, our job, is to make sure that we are delivering the facts, delivering what the president's agenda is, and that's our focus, and that's what we – we-- do every day, and we really worked -- have worked the last 18, 19 months to really repair that relationship, and there's always going to be a give and take, always, always going to be a little pull and tug, but that's okay, that's democracy, that’s the, you know, the freedom of the press, the independency of the press, and it’s, you know, we see it as an opportunity to really have, to be able to communicate to all of you, to all of the American people on the work that we're doing every single day.
COLBERT: Since you started, al-Zawahri was killed, gun control has passed, gas prices are now down below $4 a gallon, inflation has begun to ease, the PACT Act—the burn pit legislation was passed--,
JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, which is—
COLBERT: -- massive climate bill is set to pass tomorrow, what is the key to making all that happen so fast? Is it you? Are you the reason why this has happened? Or is it the fact that the president has been in isolation with COVID for a lot of that?
JEAN-PIERRE: I think, look, I think it's this, I really do believe that you have -- we have a president who has the experience, who is committed, who has the core of his conviction. If you think about why President Biden ran in 2019, it was because he saw what was happening to the core values of this country, our traditions, we were being attacked, it was being threatened, and he also saw that the little guy, right, everyday people, were being left behind, and so, he wanted to make sure that we lift people up from the bottom up and really bring out the economy from the bottom up as well and middle out.
