‘People Have Died’: Karine Jean-Pierre Responds to Peter Doocy Asking If Biden’s Gun Speech Is Meant ‘To Get People Talking About Something Else’

During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Peter Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if the president’s upcoming speech that night on guns is meant to distract from negative headlines.

“You guys at the White House had some very hard headlines this week about inflation and about baby formula,” the Fox News White House correspondent began. “If there’s nothing new that he can point to in this speech tonight, did you just schedule to get people talking about something else?”

Jean-Pierre scoffed at the idea that the speech is politically motivated, pointing to the rash of recent spree killings involving guns, including the shootings in Uvalde, Buffalo, and Tulsa.

“People have died,” she responded. “People have died in the past couple of weeks. In particular, we had 19 kids die in Uvalde just recently from a mass shooter – came into their classroom and killed them, plus their two teachers. We had people doing everyday things on a Saturday like some of us do, go to the grocery store and 10 of them were murdered. Just last night in Tulsa, we’re learning of people who were, again, killed.”

She continued,

This is very important and real for the president and for the grieving families that he has met with, sadly, in the last two weeks. So this is an opportunity, again, to call for action, to get Congress to move, and you know, it is disheartening to hear that this could potentially – if I’m hearing this right – could be used as a political tool, and that’s not what this is.

Later that evening in his speech, Biden called for bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He said when he’s visited the families of victims of gun violence, they have had the same message for him: “For God’s sake, do something.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.