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.
When Kirby replied with a simple “of course”, Heinrich followed up:
And is there any feeling that Hamas may be trying to trick the public in some way? You heard Israeli officials commenting on this latest proposal as a trick, and there’s been a lot of pressure...on the administration to make sure that the needs of Palestinians are — are being served and that the U.S. support for Israel isn’t, you know, overhanded. And you had the — the report come out earlier today, or maybe yesterday that the U.S. was potentially weighing withholding an arms shipment to Israel. Is there any concern that Hamas was trying to capitalize on that public pressure and, you know, play a trick, as Israeli officials put it?
Since he’s apparently the only adult in the room with ounces of moral clarity (but not here when he did his best Jean-Pierre impression), Kirby said he would only be able to “answer that question unless I got between the ears of Mr. Sinwar, and that’s a place I really don’t want to be” and these questions need to go to him.
Kirby then lowered the boom on these radical Islamists:
You know, it’s interesting. I stand up here and answer questions. Karine, Matt Miller at the State Department, Pentagon colleagues, the President does, Prime Minister Netanyahu does, and the IDF military spokesman does. You know who hasn’t answered a single question about his intentions and what games he might be playing or where he intends to take this? Mr. Sinwar, head of Hamas, and I think it’s a — I think it’s high time that he answers some of these questions, and he come clean about what his intentions are.
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 (click “expand”):
HEINRICH: GW’s president has called for Metro police in D.C. to intervene to dismantle what they’ve deemed an illegal encampment and D.C. police have so far refused to respond to that call. It’s happening in the President’s backyard. Is there any reaction from the White House on what should happen?”
JEAN-PIERRE: So, that is something that I’m going to leave to the local law enforcement and universities., That’s for them to figure out — for them to work it through. They know what is happening on the ground, and we’ve always been very clear about that and we’ll continue to be clear about that. We’re going to continue to call for peaceful protest and, you know, dissent cannot lead to disorder and so going to continue to be very, very clear, as the President has been — as I have been, and so many of us here in this administration has been.
HEINRICH: Any idea why DC police would not respond to this call?
JEAN-PIERRE: I would — I would refer you to the D.C. police. That’s something for them to speak to.
Elsewhere in the briefing, an Al Jazeera correspondent and The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey kvetched to an unfortunately sympathetic Kirby about Israel shutting down the pro-Hamas, Qatari-funded Al Jazeera (click “expand”):
LINSKEY: And just really quickly. The Israelis stopped broadcast of Al Jazeera over the weekend. Can you comment on whether that’s appropriate action for a United States ally?
KIRBY: We don’t support that action. As we said, very clearly on World Press Freedom Day on Friday, I know Karine talked about this, the work of independent journalism around the world is absolutely vital. Um — it’s important to an informed citizenry and public, but it’s also important to — to — uh — to help inform the policy making process, so we don’t support that at all.
LINSKEY: And did the President bring it up at all in his call?
KIRBY: The focus of the call was on hostage deal and on Rafah.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I’m gonna give you to —
KIRBY: But you say my — sorry — I think I put a statement out this morning on that. So we have officially reacted to it.
JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Al Jazeera in the back.
AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you so much, Karine. Thank you, John. Uh, is that administration planning on discussing the banning of Al Jazeera in Israel with the Israeli government? We just celebrated the freedom of the press here in the United States and across the globe, and then this decision came and it was really a big shock.
KIRBY: As I just said, we don’t —
AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT: Will this administration raise this issue with the government of Israel?
KIRBY: We have raised this issue and I made a — a public statement about it.
On a different topic NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez and CBS’s Ed O’Keefe ended the briefing by questioning Jean-Pierre about the seemingly never-ending saga of Governor Kristi Noem’s (R-SD) memoir:
NBC's @GabeGutierrez: “Just really quickly. What's your response to Kristi Noem’s comments, implying that Commanders should be put down?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 6, 2024
KJP: “Look, you know, when we learned last week, obviously, like all of you in her book that she killed her puppy, you heard me say that was… pic.twitter.com/QmxlsIZlms
To see the relevant transcript from the May 6 briefing, click here.
