Reporter Asks Jean-Pierre About New Indictment of Powerful Democrat: ‘In Another Realm This Would Be a Bigger Effing Deal’

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration viewed the new allegations that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) acted as a foreign agent for Egypt as “a serious matter.”

Jean-Pierre was asked about the president’s reaction, since both men once served as chairmen of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Joe Biden from 2001-2003, and Menendez from 2021-2023.

“I want to go back to the chairman Menendez thing, because in another realm this would be a bigger effing deal,” said CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe. “As successor to the president as chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee —”

“Well, he’s no longer chairman,” Jean-Pierre interrupted.

“No, but the president was once the chairman,” O’Keefe said.

“Oh, I see what you’re saying,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’re making that connection — Successor. I got it, I got it.”

“He’s accused of being a foreign agent for Egypt, which, not for nothing, is involved in this situation right now, for that matter,” O’Keefe said, referring to Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Has the president been brought up to speed on this? If he has no comment today, could we see comment on whether he has any concerns that someone with that kind of a position may have been accused of it, and whether he should be running for reelection?”

“We have always said it is a serious matter, right? We’ve always said that, and we’ll continue to treat that as a serious matter,” Jean-Pierre said. “I just don’t have anything else to share beyond any statements from the president. I just don’t have anything outside of that. But of course, of course we see this as a serious matter.”

Menendez was indicted on bribery charges less than a month ago, which forced him to step down from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the superseding indictment announced Thursday, federal prosecutors alleged that Menendez “provided sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt.”

Menendez pleaded not guilty to the bribery charges and has refused to resign from the Senate amid calls by a majority of Senate Democrats to do so.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.