Reporter Asks Jean-Pierre For Response to Nikki Haley’s ‘Pretty Clear Dig at the President’ on Age

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to a “clear dig at” President Joe Biden — former South Carolina Governor and Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s call for mental competency tests for politicians 75 and older.

Haley announced her candidacy for president this week with a bio-heavy campaign video on Tuesday and a rally in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday at which she called for competency tests for politicians over 75, widely seen as a shot at Biden and ex-President Donald Trump.

At Thursday’s White House briefing, Jean-Pierre was asked about the “clear shot at the current president,” and responded by ticking through a list of Biden “wins” — saying of his critics “I don’t know, maybe they’ve forgotten”:

REPORTER: Nikki Haley, who is now running for president. She is calling for mental competency tests for politicians, 75 and up, clearly a dig at the current president. In her first speech she, since announcing her run, she said “America is not past our prime, it’s just that our politicians are past theirs. We won’t win the 21st century if we keep trusting politicians from the 20th century.” Does the President have any response to that statement?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: So I’ll say this again. I’m going to be very careful as I am speaking about a candidate. She’s currently, as you all know, a candidate for 2024. So I am covered by the Hatch Act. So I’m not going to speak to her directly in her comments specifically. But I will say this more broadly. You know, we’ve heard these types of attacks or remarks before. And, you know, if you go back to 2020, they said that the president couldn’t do it in 2020 and attacked him there and he beat them. In 20, in 2021 when he entered the White House and worked to do his best to turn everything around with the economy tanking, with no COVID, real COVID comprehensive response, the president got to work and was able to pass the American Rescue Plan with the help of Democrats in Congress. And guess what? They turned around the economy and he beat them there, too. In 2022, when everyone was talking about a red wave and saying that we were going to get another shellacking, if you will. But the president beat them at their own game there as well. And so, I don’t know, maybe they’re, they’ve forgotten. Maybe they’re forgetting the wins that this president has had over the last couple of years. But I’m happy to remind them anytime.

Watch above via C-SPAN.