WATCH: WH Reporter Makes Embarrassing and Petulant Joke About Vogue Cover During Briefing To Cap Naomi Biden Outrage Cycle
CBS News White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe capped off the ridiculous Naomi Biden Wedding Outrage Cycle™ with an embarrassing and petulant joke about the Vogue magazine cover story on the blessed and apparently catastrophic-to-democracy event.
It has been a ridiculous week for the White House beat that began Friday with completely out-of-proportion angst about the fact that the wedding of President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden, who asked that her ceremony on the White House grounds be kept private, would not be open to the press.
Yes, it is reasonable and even admirable to advocate for access on behalf of “the people” — but ridiculous to keep up the venting in the face of a perfectly reasonable and frankly irrevocable response. Is there a power in the universe that wants to argue with a bride on her wedding day?
Especially a bride with ironclad reasons not to want a press corps that — unlike those of yesteryear cited in lofty arguments about history — are likely to start shouting questions about her dad’s laptop or euthanizing dogs or God knows what during her special day.
Then, the press had a collective hissy fit over a Vogue cover story about the wedding, proclaiming White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre a liar for saying the event would be private — even though it actually was private — there were no media outlets present for the wedding itself on Saturday. Not Vogue, not anyone. The magazine had shot its spread on the previous Thursday.
One reporter — Ashley Parker of The Washington Post — even compared the completely true statements the White House made about the wedding directly with the “lies” of the Trump administration.
She walked it back a little after accumulating a well-deserved ratio. A sampling:
Parker’s walk-back also got fact-checked by the White House:
Maggie Haberman also accused the White House of lying — which they definitely did not do. She also got some feedback.
Then at Tuesday’s White House briefing, O’Keefe asked them all to hold his beer as he shoehorned a snotty wisecrack into a question about President Biden privately discussing his plans with family before announcing his decision to run in 2024. Jean-Pierre took the jab in stride:
MR. DIAMOND: And then, on a separate topic, the President has said that during the holiday season he plans to sit down with his family to talk about his intentions for running, or not, for reelection in 2024. Can you give us any insights into what those discussions will look like over the Thanksgiving holiday in particular?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, I’m going to be careful here. It’s a — it’s an upcoming election. So I don’t want to dive into that too much here.
But I’ll just repeat what the President has said many times, what I’ve said many times at this podium, is that the President intends to run. He plans to run. He said himself, as you just laid out, Jeremy, that he’s going to have a private conversation with his family.
I’m certainly not going to lay out what that conversation could look like or potentially be. That is — that is the President’s, clearly, prerogative to have that conversation with his family to make that decision.
But, again, I’m not going to get — I’m not going to dive in too much into this because it’s an upcoming election. The President intends to run, and I’ll leave it there.
Go ahead, Ed.
MR. O’KEEFE: I just — look, on that private conversation, there won’t be a Vogue family shoot of the private conversation?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I have no idea.
MR. O’KEEFE: Okay.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s a private conversation that, by the way, I will not be part of, hence a private conversation.
And then, just to button things up, Rob Crilly of DailyMail.com tried to pepper Jean-Pierre with a set of questions intended to trip her up, but which succeeded only in clarifying the fact that the event actually was private, and there’s actually zero reason for any of the outrage:
MR. CRILLY: Yeah, thanks very much. You said from the lectern that the wedding of Naomi Biden and Peter would be a private one —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.
MR. CRILLY: — and that it would be closed to the media. Yet I’m reading all about it and looking at pictures on the Vogue website. Can you just talk us through what happened there?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, first of all, let’s level-step here for a second. This was not a national security meeting. This was not an economic meeting. This was not — or economic summit. This was a young couple’s wedding with their friends and families. This is what this was. This is what happened here on Saturday.
So — and, secondly, just to be very clear, Vogue did not attend the wedding. They were not there. So, what you’re reading is inaccurate. They did not attend the wedding.
As I told you all before, there was no press access at the wedding. It was a private family event. And so — wait, you’re asking me the question. Let me just lay this out for you, and then I — I’m happy to take one follow-up, and then we’re going to go.
The couple asked that their wedding events be closed to the media, and it was. It was a closed event, a private family event.
Vogue did a portrait shoot on Thursday afternoon, before the wedding, in the Green Room. I would also remind you that many photos were released to the public on Saturday, after the wedding, to everyone. Vogue actually held their photos. They embargoed it until today so that — so it would give ample time for the photos to be in the public sphere.
And so, it is inaccurate, completely wrong — it is not right to say that it was open. To suggest that it — that a Vogue cover was open to the press, it was not. And so, I just want to be very, very clear what you’re reading right now is not accurate.
MR. CRILLY: Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t suggesting that —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, but that’s what you just said.
MR. CRILLY: No, my question was: You had said it was going to be a private wedding.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It was.
MR. CRILLY: I mean, I think — I mean, it seems as if you are saying it would be — the media would not be allowed access on their wedding day. But I think those of us might think that dressing up in a wedding dress, having a photoshoot, talking about the wedding is coverage of the wedding.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: The wedding was private. It was a private family affair. There was no press access to the wedding. We were very clear about that.
There is no — no reason to mince our words here. The fa- — the family and the — and friends were invited to this family — to this wedding. It was a private event. It was a young couple’s wedding. It was a joyous occasion. Again, the reports out there are inaccurate and false.
I’ll leave it there. Thank you.
Were it not for the Thanksgiving holiday, which will put a long pause on press briefings, there’s no telling how long this would go on.
What an embarrassment for a beat that has always had a few clout-chasing attention-hogs, but has now been taken over by a particularly shameless and trivializing variety of them.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.