Fox’s Howard Kurtz Calls Out MSNBC and CNN for Ignoring Biden’s ‘Where’s Jackie?’ Gaffe: ‘Imagine if it Had Been Donald Trump’
Neither CNN nor MSNBC has devoted any airtime to President Joe Biden’s gaffe earlier this week in which he called out a recently deceased congresswoman at a speech under the apparent impression she would be there. And Fox’s Howard Kurtz noticed.
During a panel discussion on Fox’s MediaBuzz Sunday, Kurtz called out CNN and MSNBC for completely avoiding a faux pas which he labeled “cringeworthy.”
“By the way, MSNBC completely ignored it,” Kurtz told panelists Brian Kilmeade and Democratic strategist Laura Fink. “CNN completely ignored it on the air, did run a couple of online articles.”
Biden, during a speech in Washington on Wednesday, called out for Rep. Jackie Walorski, who died in August in a car accident in her native Indiana. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to explain away the gaffe by saying that the late congresswoman was “top of mind” for Biden. Kurtz believed the press secretary’s excuses for Biden didn’t cut it.
“What made this worse was when Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, said, ‘Well, this was just top of mind for him’ and that’s why he did it, as opposed to ‘Hey, he forgot and apologized,’ if that’s what happened,” Kurtz said. “Because no one’s buying the press secretary’s explanation.”
Fink conceded “it wasn’t [Jean-Pierre’s] best day,” but then tried to defend Biden.
“I think the context in which he said it though, acknowledging someone — a congresswoman — who was, in fact, deeply critical of him for her work on rural nutrition and access to food in rural areas is something it’s also because people admire that about Joe Biden (sic).”
“What?!” Kilmeade said. “How did he not know she was dead? How could he have meant it? How could he have meant that he was saluting her if he didn’t know if she was alive or dead?”
“I think he acknowledged her, and I think that’s important,” Fink said.
Kurtz reiterated his point from the top of the segment.
“There was no mention of this on MSNBC, and there was no mention of this on the air on CNN,” he said. “Imagine if it had been Donald Trump.”
Fink noted that the broadcast networks did indeed cover the gaffe.
Watch above, via Fox News.
