Facebook
X
LinkdIn
Copy Link
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in 2017, there was about a week-long news cycle between the media and White House press secretary Sean Spicer regarding the size of the inaugural crowd. The exchange was first of many pedantic battles between Spicer and the White House press corps that benefited the American public in no way whatsoever. It also launched an entire subgenre of network and publishing media incessantly focused on “fact-checking.”
White House reporters such as CNN’s Jim Acosta stood on their soapboxes and declared the White House briefing room to be a sacred space of truth, where no lies or spin would be tolerated by the brave warriors in the media.
On Sunday night, however, President Joe Biden issued a ten-year blanket pardon to his son Hunter Biden, after declaring on the record, several times, that he would not do so. In June this year, only a few short weeks before dropping out of the presidential race, President Biden sat for an interview with ABC’s David Muir in Normandy. Muir posed the question to Biden by asking directly, “Will you accept the jury’s outcome, their verdict no matter what it is?” Biden responded with a quick definitive “yes.” Muir followed up by asking the president, “Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?” Biden once again simply replied, “yes.”
Last year, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked directly several times by White House press members if the president was keeping a pardon on the table for his son. In September 2023 in response to the question, she replied, “So, I’ve answered this question before. It was asked of me, not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, and I was very clear, and I said no.” When asked in July of this year again if anything would change regarding a pardon for Hunter Biden, she replied, again, definitively, “No. No. It’s a no. It will always be a no. Biden will not pardon his son Hunter.”
President Biden lied to David Muir’s face in an interview, and his press secretary lied repeatedly now to the White House press. So where is the righteous indignation that the White House press members reserved for inauguration crowd sizes and feeding goldfish? When the Trump White House was grilled over a story about Ivanka Trump and her Lego set, it was a national emergency. When Sean Spicer was being shopped around networks for a contributor contract, there was anonymous hand-wringing about not being able to trust him.
So what will the consequences be for Karine Jean-Pierre? Will CNN or NBC refuse to hire her over trust issues? Of course not. When Biden eventually emerges, will they hold him to the same standard of truth and decency as they did Melania Trump’s hurricane attire?
A number of pundits on the political right predicted Joe Biden would pardon Hunter, yet the president and his press secretary continued to lie. How the media responds to these lies is all that matters now for them and their credibility. This election was a referendum on the double-speak and double standards the national media affords Joe Biden, his family, his party and his presidency. This will be a good first post-election test of how much the media has learned.
We will find out once and for all if journalists who occupy seats in the press briefing room really do believe it is a place of sacred truths — and we will find out in a month or two if there are any professional consequences for Karine Jean-Pierre.
Leave a Reply