WHAT: KJP Tags Doocy as ‘Dangerous’ After She Defends Dangerous Rhetoric Against Trump

Curtis Houck
September 18th, 2024 1:38 PM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

Tuesday’s White House press briefing provided the clearest indications yet the liberal media and their allies won’t tone down their rhetoric and continue to refer to Donald Trump and his supporters as dangerous and a “threat to democracy” despite the second assassination attempt on Trump in as many months. 

Thanks to a slew of softballs from liberal media outlets such as ABC and CBS, they teamed with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to make the case that it’s Trump, running mate JD Vance, and Republicans who must turn down the temperature. And, when challenged on this by Fox’s Peter Doocy, Jean-Pierre told him it’s who he’s being “dangerous”.

 

 

Doocy listened until he was the second to last reporter called on and made it count by standing up for sanity:

It's been only two days since somebody allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump again and you're here at the podium in the White House Briefing Room calling him a threat. How many more assassination attempts on Donald Trump until the President and the Vice President and you pick a different word to describe Trump other than threat?

This led to a sigh from Jean-Pierre before arguing not only did she “completely disagree with the premise of your question,” but argued he was being “incredibly dangerous” for wondering whether the Biden-Harris regime should choose its words more careful.

By doing so, she insinuated, Doocy would inspire a disturbed person to put Biden or Harris’s life in danger seeing as how “American people are watching” him. 

She also retreated to talking points about January 6 and Paul Pelosi as reasons “the temperature” (by Republicans) must be “lower[ed]”, adding it’s only factual to call attention to the danger the MAGA movement poses (click “expand”):

JEAN-PIERRE: What I have said about the President – the former President – about January 6 is facts. That's you all have reported. It is fact. When you have a former President who basically says that the election wasn't the – the – the results of the election were not the results of the election – when dozens – dozens of – more than 60 Republican judges said that it was a free and fair election. Six – more than 60 – said it was indeed a free and fair election. You had more than 2,000 people who were told to go to the Capitol. It was one of the darkest days of our democracy. One of the darkest days. There are people who law enforcement officers who died because of what happened at the Capitol and they were there because the former President told them to go there. I mean, I don't know if that's not a – if that's not a threat in our democracy when it was one of the darkest days of our democracy – January 6 – one of the darkest days.

DOOCY: To your point –

JEAN-PIERRE: And so, we – we have been very clear from here. Now, we can have a disagreement on policies. We can on issues. That is what we should do. It is important to have those disagreements. It is welcome to have those disagreements on the economy, on healthcare, on foreign policy, but when you start bringing political rhetoric – political rhetoric, that is not okay, and that's what you've heard from us too. You've heard of differences on policies.

Doocy finally got another question in:

There are people watching at home who might miss the part where you say, let's lower the temperature, and they're just – there are mentally unstable people who are attempting to kill political candidates, attempting to kill Donald Trump and they are still hearing this White House refer to him as a threat. Is there no concern that people are taking that literally?

Jean-Pierre grossly stuck to her talking points by screaming about January 6 four times in less than 30 seconds as proof of violence on the right and further demanded Doocy “be careful on how you're asking me these questions” and “people” could react violently to the White House, who are only here to “fight for our democracy” and “freedom”.

The softballs began thanks to ABC’s Selina Wang:

Jean-Pierre wouldn’t expand on her thoughts despite this second Wang softball: “So, do the President and Vice President believe that the kind of language that Trump used in those comments I just said are contributing to the tension and divisiveness you just talked about?”

 

 

However, this third one got her going and argued in part that “Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat that the former President represents to our democracy” and thus it’s incumbent upon Biden and Harris “to continue to strongly call out” Trump as a danger to preserve “our democracy”.

Reuters’s Jeff Mason threw a softball about Vance that got Jean-Pierre to argue in essence that he’s putting Harris’s life in danger:

CBS’s Nancy Cordes actually offered some pushback:

CORDES: I want to follow up on that because Senator Vance appeared to call out specifically one of the phrases that you used earlier, which was threat to democracy. He said, “We cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist, and if he's elected, that it's going to be the end of American democracy.” Now, I recognize that Donald Trump has also used those phrases threat to democracy, danger to democracy, but in light of what has happened and in light of the fact that there are going to be disturbed people who take words like threat or danger literally, is the President and is the Vice President considering avoiding those specific terms, threat to democracy or danger to democracy?

JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, look, and I answered this question. The President has always been very clear-eyed about this, about the threat of the former President represents to our democracy. Just think about January 6th. January 6th – we have to be honest with the American people when we see those types of threats when we that type of rhetoric that led to 2,000 people going to the Capitol. We have to call that out. Uh – and – uh – look, let me step back for a second even further. You all, as news organizations have the obligation – right – you are all obligated to cover events like January 6th, as I mentioned before, some of your colleagues were there, some of you were there on January 6th, and you had to report that the way you saw it, the obligation to do that. We appreciate it because I know those were dangerous times. That was a dangerous day to be there and you know, we have to call out any type of refusal of an outcome of an election. Any type of violent rhetoric – and this administration has the responsibility to be honest to the American people. So, look, we are, we can as a country – right – we can have disagreements on issues, on policy issues. It is okay to have that conversation. We had a debate, as I mentioned recently. It is – it is – uh – that is what's beautiful about what we do – right – uh – to go back and forth about our democracy, but once you talk – once there's violent rhetoric, we got to condemn that. And you know, the President is going to encourage all leaders from both parties to do so – all leaders from both parties to do so. Uh – it's not just on one, all leaders on both parties have to make sure that we do not – um – we do not use that type of violent political rhetoric because look what happened January 6th, Paul Pelosi, Butler, over the weekend. We got to be mindful.

Of course, April Ryan wanted to throw gasoline on the fire:

Anita Powell of taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) had a softball questioning whether the toxicity in our politics might have the world asking “is democracy dangerous” and hardens the resolve of “American adversaries.”

To see the relevant transcript from the September 17 briefing (including Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence asking whether the Biden-Harris administration thinks Americans are better off than they were four years ago), click here.

Donor Privacy Policy