On Wednesday, Joe Biden made a cringeworthy faux pas at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health while acknowledging the bipartisan team behind the conference, which included the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) Biden apparently forgot she had passed away in a car crash last month because he looked for her in the crowd and asked: “Where’s Jackie?”
It was a rather shocking flub on his part, which wasn’t made any better when White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to admit that Biden had misspoken and claimed that he called for Walorski because “she was at top of mind,” whatever that means.
Joe Biden asks around the audience to point out "Jackie" during a conference on hunger, nutrition, and health.
Is he referring to Republican Representative Jackie Walorski, who passed away in a car accident in early August? pic.twitter.com/pSRkQLQJYU
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 28, 2022
Jean-Pierre was asked if the White House would release the prepared remarks for Biden’s speech at the conference, which she balked at.
“Can you explain where the mistake was made? Did the pres—was the president confused? Was something written in the teleprompter that he didn’t recognize? Can you just help us understand what happened?” a reporter asked.
“I mean, you’re jumping to a lot of conclusions,” Jean-Pierre insisted before jumping into her boilerplate explanation for why Biden was looking for Walorski.
“Would you be prepared to release the prepared remarks that the president had in the teleprompter just so we could understand?” the reporter asked.
“I’m not understanding why — why that would be — would be necessary. We always share the remarks that the president had — even, you know, delivered. That’s probably going to be up on the website. Not really sure what that has to do with anything,” she replied.
While the prepared remarks have not been released, the White House did eventually release an official transcript, which reads as follows.
And I want to thank all of you here, including bipartisan elected officials like Representative McGovern, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative — Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I didn’t think she was — she wasn’t going to be here — to help make this a reality. And thanks to Senator Stabenow, Representative DeLauro for their leadership.
The White House has often “corrected” transcripts when Biden misspeaks, but they opted not to in this case. The explanation that Walorski was “on top of mind” is their story, and they’re sticking to it.
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