Bloomberg White House Reporter Gets Blasted Over Kamala Harris ‘Fake French Accent’ Tweet

Tommy ChristopherNov 13th, 2021, 1:34 pm
 

Bloomberg News White House correspondent Jennifer Jacobs took heat over a tweet that referenced the claim that Vice President Kamala Harris used a “fake French accent” during her trip to France — which Jacobs says was intended to contextualize the attack.

Jacobs tweeted a clip from Harris’ Friday press conference, and described the moment by writing “The @VP again used the ‘thee’ pronunciation for the word ‘the’ when making a point. Some critics have claimed she appeared to adopt ‘a fake French accent’ when she said ‘the plan’ during a tour of a research lab on Tuesday. Today at Paris press conference, she said ‘the topic.'”

Earlier in the week, conservative critics of the VP imagined a French affect in a different clip from the trip, a moment to which Jacobs compared Harris’ more recent remark. In a follow-up tweet, Jacobs clarified that “as a reporter in the room for both sets of remarks by the VP, I heard zero French accent in her words.”

But that clarification, made over an hour later, did not spare Ms. Jacobs from intense backlash that included some apparent shade from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who asked Jacobs “Where are these critics?”

Jacobs responded to Haberman — who is notoriously sensitive to online criticism herself — by posting screenshots of articles on the “controversy,” writing “For those of you who missed some of the context on this frivolous social media debate, do a google search.”

But many political media figures and other verified users took exception, and mistook Jacobs’ tweet for endorsement or amplification of the “debate.”

The VP was using the long “e” sound for emphasis, as Jacobs said, and which her original tweet may have been intended to illustrate. Jacobs also offered a positive assessment of the VP’s tripshopping at a French kitchen store, and tweeted some video of Harris :

Watch the press conference moment in question above via Reuters.

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