Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy grilled Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during Thursday’s press briefing, asking why President Joe Biden was headed to his Delaware beach house if he truly believed gun violence was a national emergency.
Doocy noted that Biden has called on Congress to act on gun violence right away, and he is expected to repeat that call in an address scheduled for Thursday evening — right before he leaves the White House for a weekend at the beach.
“If the president thinks that Congress must act immediately to end this epidemic of gun violence, is he going to bring any of the key players from Capitol Hill to the beach with him tonight?” Doocy asked.
WATCH:
DOOCY TIME: "If [Biden] thinks…Congress must act immediately to end this epidemic of gun violence, is he going to bring the key players from Capitol Hill to the beach with him tonight?"
KJP: "Oh, okay, so, I don't have–"
Doocy: "Isn't that a big part of [his] whole thing[?]" pic.twitter.com/W81tAz8Tfz
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 2, 2022
“Oh, okay,” Jean-Pierre appeared to scoff at the question, adding, “So I don’t have —”
“Wasn’t that a part of candidate Biden’s whole — thing — that he knows how to get things done with Congress …” Doocy continued.
“He does, he does!” Jean-Pierre insisted, going on to claim that Biden had beaten the gun lobby in the past. Doocy quickly pushed back, saying that was all the more reason for Biden to be sitting down with lawmakers and showing them how to do the same.
WATCH:
KJP: "He's beaten the gun lobby before. He has."
Doocy: "Then why not invite these lawmakers who haven't —"
KJP: "But it's not –"
Doocy: "– beaten the gun lobby –"
KJP: " –but it's not –"
Doocy: "–and say this is how it's done?"
KJP: "–but it's not his thing." pic.twitter.com/PtGGL4I2Ds
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 2, 2022
“I mean, he’s beaten the gun lobby before. He has,” Jean-Pierre asserted.
“Then why not invite these lawmakers who haven’t —” Doocy tried to push back.
“But it’s not —” Jean-Pierre objected.
“— beaten the gun lobby —” Doocy interjected.
“—but it’s not —” she tried again.
“—and say this is how it’s done?”
“—but it’s not his thing,” the press secretary said, appearing to suggest that because Biden was no longer in Congress himself, he did not need to be a part of the “immediate action” he was calling on Congress to deliver. “It’s actually fact. We saw he did that in the Senate, during his Congress days, that he beat the gun lobby.”
Then-Senator Biden was at the helm of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” — which was allowed to lapse in 2004 — became law. And in the days since the May 24th shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, he has called for Congress to consider a similar ban in the coming days.
He has also repeated his false claim that individual citizens could not buy cannons when the Second Amendment was ratified (they could, and did) — and also claimed that 9 mm bullets could “blow the lung out of the body.”
He is scheduled to speak on gun violence on Thursday evening prior to his departure for Delaware.