White House Reacts to Ray Rice Firing: Violence Against Women 'Cannot Be Tolerated'

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about the firing of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice on Monday after a video tape was released by TMZ showing him knocking out his then-fiancée.

Earnest said that as a sports fan, Obama was aware of the situation with Rice but didn’t know if he had seen the video.

He reminded the press corps that both Vice President Biden and President Obama recognized that the “scourge of violence against women needed to be something that needed to be aggressively combated.”

Earnest said that both Biden and Obama frequently made “forceful comments” that men needed to “band together” and send a message that violence against women “is not and cannot be tolerated.”