WH Press Grill Jean-Pierre During Air Force One Briefing After Biden’s ‘More Important Things’ Border Blow-Off

White House reporters grilled White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the border minutes after President Joe Biden shot down Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy’s challenge to visit the southern border by saying “there are more important things going on.”

On Tuesday morning, the president answered questions as he prepared to board Marine One en route to Phoenix, including this one from Doocy: “Why go to a border state and not visit the border?”

“Because there are more important things going on. They’re going to invest billions of dollars in the new enterprise in the state,” Biden replied, echoing what White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Fox reporters at Monday’s White House briefing.

Minutes later, Jean-Pierre briefed reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Arizona, and was repeatedly asked about the border, including by one reporter who asked if the president was being “dismissive” in his response to Doocy:

Q Just one more. The President was asked, as he was leaving the White House, if he was going to go to the border. He said he had — “there are more important things going on.” What — can you — can you clarify those remarks?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, I’m happy to —

Q Were — was he being dismissive (inaudible)?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, look, happy to. Oh, absolutely not. I mean, I just laid out a couple moments ago, like, when the President first walked into the administration, the first thing he did was put forth a comprehensive immigration reform legislation. So that showed his commitment to dealing with that issue.

Look, the President was clear that his top priority is investing in the American economy and in American communities. And he’s focused on outcompeting China and bringing back American jobs from overseas. That’s what you’re going to see today.

And so if anyone believes that the President shouldn’t do — shouldn’t make that his top priority, they should say that out loud, right?

I mean, you’re going to see for yourselves. When we land in Phoenix, Arizona, we’re going to — the President is going to lay out why this trip to Arizona is so important, why CHIPS and Science Act is so important and what it’s going to do for the American people and the people in Arizona — creating good-paying jobs.

Since the Amer- — since the President has been in office, more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs have been created here alone.

So just to step back, just to talk a little bit about the — what the President has done at the border: The President is — has taken action to secure our border and build a fair, orderly, and humane immigration system. He’s secured more funding than all of his predecessors to support the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security. He’s put forth a comprehensive, as I just mentioned, immigration reform proposal.

He’s brought 20 world leaders — as some of you traveled with us to L.A. — together to jointly manage the migration challenge impacting the entire Western Hemisphere. That — that came out of that trip that — the summit that he had in L.A. not too long ago. He focused on real solutions, not — again, not political stunts.

And if border security is such a top priority for Republicans officials, voting against record funding for the Department of Homeland Security is at odd — is an odd way to show that. And that’s what we have been trying to lay out, right?

I mean, you have Republican officials who continuingly [sic] — continuously do political stunt but do not put forward a solution.

And so we’re solution-oriented. We want to come to a place where we fine — find answers, and they’re not doing that.

Listen above via The White House.