‘I Don’t Even Understand…’ WH Spox Karine Jean-Pierre Baffled By Question From Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson About Delta Variant
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was baffled during Friday’s White House press briefing by a question from Newsmax over testing for the Delta strain of the coronavirus.
“Karine, how do you test that is the Delta variant, that Covid is the Delta variant,” shouted Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson amid technical difficulties with the sound of the weekly “Fun Friday Zoom,” where a reporter asks the White House briefer by video.
A puzzled Jean-Pierre replied, “I don’t understand the question.”
Robinson sought to clarify, “How do you test when that is the dominant strain in the area when people just test whether they’re Covid positive.”
“We don’t test it,” responded Jean-Pierre. “We listen to public health and scientists and they tell us that is the Delta variant.”
Robinson tried to elaborate on her question by asking how coronavirus testing can specifically detect the Delta variant in that testing had been for detecting whether someone has the original strain.
Jean-Pierre said that she “laid out” how contagious the Delta variant is – only to be interjected by Robinson, who said, “A lot of the answers we get is because they say so without a lot of …,” with Jean-Pierre interjecting, “These are scientists. These are experts.”
Robinson interrupted but Jean-Pierre said, “Hold on one second … hold on one second. I just said that [CDC Director] Dr. [Rochelle] Walensky said just recently in her 20-year career she had never seen a variant that was so contagious. So this is 20 years of her career. So this is absolutely, absolutely a major, major problem that we are trying to deal with.”
“That’s why we heard from the president yesterday. That’s why we keep talking about people need to get vaccinated,” continued Jean-Pierre. “So that is the way that we’re trying to move in this administration. Making sure we are protecting people here. Making sure that we’re dealing with this pandemic in a way that is effective. And that’s how we’re going to move forward.”
Watch above, via CSPAN.
