The Biden White House clearly wants Joe Biden’s awkward “Where’s Jackie?” moment to go away, but the way they’ve responded to it by completely denying that he either “misspoke” or “forgot” has ensured that it won’t.
When last we left you on this issue, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was in full denial mode, at times becoming defensive while insisting that there was nothing unusual about Biden not remembering the tragic deaths of former Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) and two Congressional aides less than two months after he and First Lady Jill Biden issued a statement expressing their shock and sending their condolences.
At the time of her death, Biden also ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in Walorski’s memory.
In an update to this story, there was a bill signing on Friday in which an Indiana VA clinic was officially renamed after Walorski. Jean-Pierre had indicated on Wednesday that this bill signing would be taking place but did not note that it would be private:
On Friday a reporter asked her during the press briefing about it not being open to the press and inquired about what happened. Her answer – that this was a “personal moment” between Biden and the family – made no sense:
And as you — as you all know, we don’t put every bill signing on — on the schedule. As you can imagine, this is a personal — a personal moment that — that the President was doing.
You know, like I mentioned in the briefing a couple of days ago and as you just stated, the President has been, you know, looking forward to hosting the late representative’s family and other lawmakers to honor her legacy. And he is signing the bill naming a post office in her memory. And that is happening; it was happening when we started the briefing, so I haven’t gotten an update on how that went. But clearly, this is a — this is an important — this is an important moment for her — for her family.
And so, I can give you a little bit of who was in the meeting so that you all know. It included the late representative’s husband, mother, brother, staff, and several bipartisan members of Congress — Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Representative Jim Baird, Representative Jim Banks.
Watch:
Why make this event private? If the idea was to honor Walorski’s service and to make it known to the public that the clinic was being renamed after her, why keep it behind closed doors where cameras were reportedly “banned“?
I mean there is not even a readout of what was said posted on the White House website. All that’s noted there is this:
On Friday, September 30, 2022, the President signed into law:
H.R. 8656, which designates the clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Mishawaka, Indiana, as the Jackie Walorski VA Clinic.
Thank you to the Indiana delegation and many others for their leadership.
Biden’s concerning avoidance of the press at the time of the Friday bill signing curiously came on top of there conveniently being no press briefing by Jean-Pierre on Thursday, the day after all hell broke loose in the briefing room on this issue:
As I said earlier, undoubtedly Biden and his handlers would like to sweep this issue under the rug and not have Biden pressed on the subject, but it’s not going to go away, because the elephant in the room on Biden’s state of mind has roared to life thanks to what happened last week, so much so that not even the Democrat apologists in the MSM can ignore it anymore.
Related: A Disturbing Pattern Emerges With Joe Biden’s Handlers