A question from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has breathed new life into a rumor that President Joe Biden may have had a medical emergency in July that the administration is covering up.
Doocy asked Jean-Pierre about an audio recording first uncovered by the outlet The Daily Beast. It contains audio of emergency and police radio traffic in Las Vegas where the president was on July 17. In the recording, first responders can be heard saying the president was “421,” the code word for a sick or injured person. The voice on the recording said everyone was trying to figure out whether the president was OK, and seemed to indicate he had been taken to a hospital.
Jean-Pierre and Doocy have a famously barbed relationship. Doocy asks the press secretary direct and uncomfortable questions frequently, to which she often responds with visible irritation and scolding. During a press conference on Monday, August 12, he asked her about the story, saying it seemed as if police were “racing to secure a hospital emergency room” for the president. It sounded like those on scene were convinced Biden was having a medical crisis.
Jean-Pierre said that was not true, and then quickly tried to pivot to the claim that the incident was somehow about the president testing positive for the coronavirus in Las Vegas. It is not clear at all how that “answer” is responsive to the outstanding question. How could a positive test for the respiratory virus lead to a scramble to get the president a hospital bed?
In her usual fashion, Jean-Pierre then attempted to “answer” the question by redirecting attention to what she apparently sees as Joe Biden’s stellar governmental response to the pandemic.
“People are still testing positive for Covid,” she said, as if this were new information. But because of President Biden’s “comprehensive way” to “move forward” through the pandemic, plus the availability of vaccines, the pandemic is “behind us” and it’s all thanks to the president.
If that did not make much sense, that is because Jean-Pierre’s words do not make sense in the context of the question.
Just five days later, Biden announced that he was leaving the 2024 presidential race and passing the baton to unpopular vice president Kamala Harris.
