White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre bristled when questioned Tuesday on Democrat voters’ views on President Biden’s age and claims from an upcoming book that administration staff treat him “like a toddler.”
“President Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Why does White House staff treat him like a baby?” Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre during the daily White House press briefing.
“No one treats the president of the United States, the commander in chief, like a baby. That’s ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous claim,” Jean-Pierre responded.
Doocy cited an upcoming book by The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer, “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,” in which the author writes that Biden, after appearing to call for regime change in Russia in March 2022, “fumed to friends about how he was treated like a toddler.”
“Was John Kennedy ever babied like that?” Biden asked, according to the book.
Jean-Pierre dismissed the excerpt, arguing that books inevitably get written about every administration with “a variety of claims.”
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“That is not unusual. That happens all the time. And we’re not going to litigate those here. That’s something that we’re not going to speak to,” she said. She went on to say that the excerpt was instead making a point about “how the value of [Biden’s] experience and wisdom resulted in rallying the free world against authoritarianism.”
Jean-Pierre used the claim to try and redirect to Biden’s upcoming trip to the G20 in India.
However, Doocy turned to a recent Wall Street Journal poll that found two-thirds of Democrats think Biden is too old to run for president again.
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“Look, here’s what I know. Here’s what I can speak to. I can speak to that – a president who has wisdom. I can speak to a president who has experience. I can speak to a president who has done historic – has taken historic action and has delivered in historic pieces of legislation. And that’s important,” Jean-Pierre said.
She went on to tout Biden’s accomplishments pertaining to infrastructure, the cost of prescription drugs and the Inflation Reduction Act, among others.
“The president continues to prevail,” she added.