The liberal media can spin Wednesday’s inflation report however they want (and they have in some wild cases), but nothing changes the underlining facts how Americans continue to struggle. Even though one AP reporter eagerly wondered if “the inflation problem is solved”, Fox’s duo of Peter Doocy and Edward Lawrence showed up at that day’s White House press briefing to give both Karine Jean-Pierre and Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein hardballs.
And, as we saw with reporters from ABC and NBC, the liberal media can finally speak the truth about Hunter Biden’s life of ruin and the legal peril he faces now that his father Joe Biden is no longer running for reelection.
Later during Bernstein’s Q&A and minutes after a long-winded answer to CBS’s Weijia Jiang arguing President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been hard at work on prices (even though they’ve had almost four years to address it), Lawrence wondered why should anyone trust Biden and Harris to finish that job.
To his credit, Lawrence interjected when Bernstein held up airfare of all things as proof of prices in some places coming down:
FBN’s @EdwardLawrence: “So, you said we hear you, but, you know, we've been hearing that message in some form over the past three years, and the fact is the prices are not coming down, they're going up. Debt is also rising, that's going up, so why should Americans believe the… pic.twitter.com/BirqRkKF19
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2024
Lawrence followed up: “But still, energy prices too. I mean, from when the day President Biden came into office to today, the stuff that people need is up[.]”
Incredibly, Bernstein acknowledged gas is more expensive now than when Biden took office, but more or less told Americans to accept it because certain things “go up over time” and Biden’s been “taking action” to address the discomfort.
Lawrence dropped one more truth bomb: “[B]ut the President’s been in office 42 months and I know this is — I mean, the President has been in office — 42 months — wages are down 1.3 percent from the month President Biden got into office.”
In response, he lectured Lawrence and other reporters to “do me a favor whenever you’re writing about prices” and dismiss the prices concern because of “a real spike in wages” and increase in “disposable personal income”.
Doocy spoke to Jean-Pierre about the economy through the lens of Harris’s campaign and Axios reporting she plans to separate herself from the administration bearing her name, specifically on Bidenomics:
DOOCY TIME: “When did you guys learn that Vice President Harris wants to distance herself from Bidenomics?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2024
KJP: “Why do you think that?”
Doocy: “Axios is now reporting that she is 'hoping to distance herself from President Biden's unpopularity on the economy.' Can you blame… pic.twitter.com/j3R954IRkT
Doocy then twice tried to have Jean-Pierre admit that, in his words, “if Bidenomics was more popular, President Biden would still be the candidate.”
Of course, she wouldn’t bite and instead invoked “MAGAnomics” and the false claims about “want[ing]” the country to suffer “supercharged inflation” and have increase “taxes on the middle class” and “cut Social Security”.
Doocy closed with the press access issue to Harris: “The Vice President's team is not holding any press briefings. You are left to answer everything for her, even though you are not the Vice President's press secretary. Is that getting old?”
As someone clearly checked out, Jean-Pierre insisted she speaks “for the Biden-Harris administration” and it’s been an “honor and privilege to stand before you to be able to do that job, and I will do it as long as — as long as I can — right — to the end of this term”.
Shifting to Hunter Biden, ABC’s Selina Wang pressed Jean-Pierre on The New York Times’s reporting about Hunter and the U.S. Embassy in Italy:
ABC’s @SelinaWangTV: “The New York Times is reporting that Hunter Biden sought help from a U.S. ambassador on behalf of Burisma while he was on the company's board and while Biden was vice president. So what's Biden's reaction to this, and is he concerned about what this looks… pic.twitter.com/hmLmi3qo88
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2024
And, in a key exchange to bookmark for if Harris wins in November, Wang wondered whether Harris would pardon Hunter. Of course, Jean-Pierre stammered and stumbled her way through to argue she only “speak[s] for the President” on that.
NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell also brought the hammer down on the Hunter Biden developments, including the all-too-convenient decision by the Biden State Department to comply with requests for documents relating to communications with Hunter now that Joe is out the presidential race
NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell: “The Hunter Biden documents — seeking State Department help came out after the President was no longer a candidate. Is the President bothered by that at all?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2024
KJP: “Uh — I — look, what I can say is — um — uh — what I've said before — uh — he's not — he was… pic.twitter.com/EcsZ4aYok1
This continued with not one, but two follow-ups (click “expand”):
O’DONNELL: Now that he is aware, is he satisfied with how his son conducted himself in seeking help from the State Department?
JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, look, I — I can't speak to this. This is something that is an ongoing process. I got to let Biden — who's a private citizen — Hunter Biden, who's a private citizen, speak to this. What I can say is the President's never been in business with his son. He was not aware of this, and this is something for Hunter Biden to.
O’DONNELL: Should the documents have come out more quickly, though, given that it's been years of litigation?
JEAN-PIERRE: I — I really can't speak to timeline. The process here is not something that I can speak to from the podium.
To see the relevant transcript from the August 14 briefing (including CBS’s Weijia Jiang wondering if Biden truly believes internet influencers are “nonpartisan” and CNN’s M.J. Lee asking Bernstein about comments Biden made demanding the liberal media speak more positively about the economy), click here.