President Joe Biden’s White House downplayed his attempt to find deceased Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) in a crowd on Wednesday, claiming it was “not an unusual scenario.”
During a White House conference on hunger, nutrition, and health, Biden addressed Walorski, who tragically died in a car crash last month. A tribute video honoring Walorksi’s work on the issue was played just before Biden addressed the crowd, but Biden reportedly was not on site when the video was played.
“Representative … Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” Biden said while shouting out other elected officials who worked to organize the conference.
“I didn’t think she was going to be here,” Biden added.
Biden seemingly forgot that his administration issued a statement after Walorski’s tragic death.
“Jill and I are shocked and saddened by the death of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana along with two members of her staff in a car accident today in Indiana,” the statement began.
Interestingly, the White House Print Press Pool reporter for the day, Alexander Nazaryan, ignored Biden’s gaffe.
“The White House print pool reporter today is @alexnazaryan,” Arthur Schwartz tweeted. “This incident does not appear in the White House pool reports for this event. Why is that, Alex?”
Richard Grenell noted that he emailed Nazaryan’s editor to determine if the omission was an intentional move by Yahoo News.
“I have emailed @colincampbell, Alex’s Editor, to ask if Yahoo editors instructed Alex to delete the Biden blunder from the pool report -or- if Alex never included it,” Grenell tweeted. “Colin has not answered yet.”
The White House would not “concede that Biden misspoke when he asked if the recently deceased Rep. Walorski was in attendance today,” Politico’s Sam Stein reported.
The Daily Mail’s Rob Crilly noted that “misspeak” is not an appropriate way to describe Biden’s gaffe. “Not sure that quite covers looking around the room and asking where a dead person is,” Crilly tweeted.
During a press conference later in the day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Biden had Walorski at the “top of mind” and claimed his attempt to find the deceased congresswoman was not “unusual.”
“You all saw, you all watched, which is why you’re asking the question, right? Where he was calling out, again, congressional leaders, a bipartisan leadership that we have seen on this particular issue,” Jean-Pierre said. “And again, he’s going to see her family in just two days, and she was on top of mind.”
“I mean, that is, that is not an unusual scenario there,” Jean-Pierre continued.
“Karine, I have John Lennon top of mind every day but I’m not looking around for him,” one reporter replied.
“When you sign a bill for John Lennon as president then we can have this conversation,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre then ignored follow-up questions from reporters, including one asking whether Biden would apologize to Walorski’s family.
Jean-Pierre admonished the reporter who continued to press her for an answer, saying, “it is not your turn to speak, and you’re being rude to your colleagues, and let your colleague answer the question.”
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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