White House Quietly Fixes Jean-Pierre’s Claim About Biden
ON SECOND THOUGHT...
The White House has quietly updated a claim made by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a fiery exchange about President Joe Biden’s press accessibility. It all got a little heated aboard Air Force One on Tuesday as Jean-Pierre fielded questions about how regularly Biden speaks to journalists, with the spokesperson claiming that Biden answered more questions than Donald Trump and Barack Obama “combined.” A journalist asked if Jean-Pierre’s claim was measured by the number of “minutes spoken” or some other metric, to which she answered: “I just said questions... I said number of questions.” But a White House transcript of the exchange was edited to change instances of Jean-Pierre saying “questions” to “question-and-answer sessions.” Another update had qualifying information added, explaining that Biden had answered more questions than Trump and Obama “in the first 20 months of their presidencies” rather than over the full course of their terms in office.