‘I Missed the Joke!’ White House Reporters and Biden Spox Jean-Pierre Share Laugh Over Question About Steve Bannon Guilty Verdict
White House reporters laughed when one of them made a crack about White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre being asked to comment on Steve Bannon‘s guilty verdict.
Jean-Pierre briefed reporters shortly after the news broke Friday afternoon that Bannon had been convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress, and will be sentenced on Oct. 21, for defying the January 6 committee. She was joined by White House Covid coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, who helped field questions about President Joe Biden’s Covid illness.
While the president’s health dominated the briefing, NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander did make an attempt to jar loose a comment about the Bannon case, which led Brian Karem to crack wise and Jean-Pierre to make him repeat it, and a good time was had by all. Jean-Pierre also delivered an important lesson for observers of Bannon’s plight — to cooperate with the committee:
MR. ALEXANDER: Thanks. Did you have any reaction to the Steve Bannon case? I know it’s over, and I know, obviously —
MR. KAREM: (inaudible)
(Laughter.)
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: What did you say? What was your last part? I missed the joke.
MR. KAREM: Well, I was just saying we could tell you wanted to address that. (Inaudible.) Yeah.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh. Oh. So, look, I’m not going to comment specifically on that case. But, obviously, everyone should cooperate with the January 6 Committee. Our administration has made very clear this President finds what the Select Committee is doing — the January 6 Committee is doing very important, and people should be listening and learning from what happened on that very dark day.
And this is a very important committee where they’re working to get to the bottom of what happened on that day. It was an attack not just on our democracy, but also an attack on our law enforcement.
And, again, I’m not going to comment on that specifically. But, yes, people should obviously — should cooperate with the committee.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
