President Joe Biden has called Fox News reporter Peter Doocy to ‘clear the air’ after he was heard calling the journalist a ‘stupid son of a b**ch’ on a hot mic following an event at the White House on Monday.
The president made the comment at the tail end of an event meant to publicize his efforts to address supply-chain issues and tackle inflation.
When he finished his prepared remarks, several reporters yelled out questions to the president – who was seated across the long East Room of the White House.
He was caught calling Doocy a ‘stupid son of a b**ch’ on a hot mic after he asked a question about inflation Monday.
On Monday night, Doocy appeared on Sean Hannity’s program to explain that he had since heard directly from the president who had called his cellphone.
Doocy said that initially, he did not hear the president’s insult.
‘My reaction was delayed because as you can see the Biden staff were ushering us out. They were telling us thank you, time to go. It wasn’t until we went to the basement and then outside and then back to the press room that somebody said “Hey, did you hear with the president said about you?”
I said no, “What did he say?”,
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“He called you a stupid sob.”
And I said “I did not hear that”, and I opened up my phone and… he did!’ Doocy explained.
The 34-year-old White House Correspondent then told how the president reached out to him around one hour later.
‘After years of clips of the president and I kind of mixing it up on the campaign trail and during the transition here at The White House, within about an hour of that exchange, he called my cell phone and he just said “It is nothing personal, pal.”
‘And we went back and forth and we were talking about moving forward and I made sure to tell him that I’m always going to try to ask something different than what everybody else is asking.
‘And he said, “You’ve got to.”
‘And that is the quote from the president, so I will keep doing it.
Asked by anchor Sean Hannity is Biden apologized, Doocy explained that he ‘cleared the air’.
‘He cleared the air. And I appreciate it. We had a nice call,’ Doocy recounted.
But Hannity wasn’t satisfied: ‘To me that is not an answer. Did he apologize? That doesn’t sound like an apology,’ said Hannity, laughing.
‘He said, “It is nothing personal, pal”, and I told him I appreciated him reaching out,’ Doocy elaborated.
‘Hey, Sean, the world is on the brink of like World War III right now. With all the stuff going on. I appreciate that the president took a couple minutes out as evening he was still the desk to give me a call and clear the air. But I don’t need anybody to apologize to me. He can call me whatever he wants as long as it gets him talking,’ Doocy continued.
‘The president said ‘Nothing personal pal’. It’s enough! We can move forward,’
Earlier at the White House, Biden spoke briefly about his call with European leaders about the Ukraine crisis when asked for an update by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins – but first scolded the press.
‘The only reason I don’t like doing this is you never report on why I’ve called the meeting. This is really important. I had a very, very, very good meeting. Total unanimity with all the European leaders. We’ll talk about it later,’ Biden responded.
Then Doocy, who was being ushered out, asked: ‘Do you think inflation is a political liability [ahead of the] midterms?’
Biden was then caught on a hot mic muttering: ‘That’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a b**ch.’
The comment distracted from the event Biden hoped to feature, having gathered the Treasury Secretary, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and other top administration officials.
The broadside came days after Biden mocked another Fox news reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, ‘Why are you waiting on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to make the first move, sir?’
‘What a stupid question’ Biden responded.
‘You’re going to be known as the stupid SOB guy,’ Fox host Jesse Waters told Doocy as hosts on Fox News ‘The Five’ laughed about the episode after Doocy rushed on-air to provide a play-by-play.
‘So I shouted… ‘Okay, what about inflation? Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?’ Doocy explained during his appearance. ‘I couldn’t even hear him because people were shouting at us to get out. But somebody came up to me in the briefing room a few minutes later and said, ‘Did you hear what the president said?’ And I said, ‘No, what?’ They said, ‘He called you stupid SOB.’ And I said, Did he say ‘SOB’ and the person said, ‘No.’
‘So Doocy, I think the president’s right, you are a stupid SOB,’ Watters quipped.
‘Yeah, nobody has fact-checked him yet and said it’s not true,’ Doocy replied.
Making the episode all the more unusual was Biden’s own habit of regularly calling on Doocy at the event of events, including at his marathon press conference last week.
The White House appears to have attempted to choreograph how the event was supposed to end. After Biden finished his own prepared remarks, Biden yielded to economic advisor Brian Deese, who said: ‘We’re going to give the press a moment to exit.’ That served as a cue for the media to leave, although reporters shouted questions about the brewing situation in Ukraine anyway.
An official White House readout of Biden’s call with European leaders was free of curses, but didn’t shed much light on the latest developments in the region.
‘President Biden held a secure video call with European leaders today. They reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders and expressed their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,’ according to the statement. ‘The leaders underscored their shared desire for a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions and reviewed recent engagements with Russia in multiple formats. The leaders also discussed their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATO’s eastern flank,’ the statement said.
It didn’t take long for some Biden opponents to pounce.
‘Joe Biden may think it’s stupid to care about inflation,’ tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). ‘But a whole lot of Americans disagree. And they’re going to vote this November.’
Longtime Democratic strategist Jim Manley, who used to work for the sharp-tongued Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, tweeted: ‘I have more than a passing familiarity with trying to get a certain senator from answering questions on the fly from unfriendly reporters. Someone on the wh staff has got to tell Biden to knock this off.’
The White House did not immediately respond to a question about what happened and whether Biden knew the mic was on at the time he made the comment.
Biden’s slap came on a tense day overseas, after he spent the weekend at Camp David and met with security advisors.
His event came after the Pentagon announced that Biden is ordering 8,500 U.S.-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe.
‘This is really about getting folks ready to go,’ Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference.
He said the majority of those troops would be ground forces.
‘There’s not a mission per se, this is about [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] wanting to get ahead of the potential activation and making sure these units have time to prepare,’ Kirby told reporters.
The NATO Response Force is comprised of some 40,000 international troops across land, air, maritime and Special Operations Forces (SOF) components.
Kirby said the move was ‘sending a strong message that we’re committed to NATO and we’re committed to ensuring that our allies have the capabilities they need in case they need to defend themselves.’
He stressed the troops are currently on ‘heightened alert’ posture and have no plans to deploy at this time.
The ‘bulk of them’ would be dedicated to the NRF to be activated if called upon by the Western defensive coalition but added that Austin wants the 8,500 troops to be postured for ‘any other contingencies as well.’
A vast majority of those standby troops will be active duty service members, though Kirby did not rule out the possibility of getting reserve forces assembled as well.
Austin ordered the troops to stand ready to deploy at the direction of President Joe Biden.
Kirby said the units that would be flagged for possible deployment to Eastern Europe would be notified and announced in the near future.
‘It’s very clear the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating,’ the Pentagon official said.
Following their video call, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the leaders agreed there would be ‘severe costs’ to Russia if Moscow invaded Ukraine.– dailymail
