Joe Biden is steaming mad. His entire staff seems to be incapable of buoying his chances in November.
And now a top White House official could lose their job after making a humiliating admission.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP) tried to defend the administration’s choice to withhold President Joe Biden’s recorded interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
Biden claimed executive privilege over audio recordings from the criminal inquiry into his handling of sensitive data, in which Hur chose not to charge the president, in part because of his declining mental health.
The decision was communicated to House leaders on Thursday, just hours before a pair of GOP-led committees were expected to move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings against Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to fully comply with subpoenas issued in February demanding tapes of Hur’s two-day interview with Biden and the special counsel’s interview with Biden’s ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.
KJP was questioned regarding his decision to block the release of the tapes for political reasons.
“Why not just release them, especially with this White House’s commitment to transparency?” a reporter asked.
“Yeah. Well, one — for one, the transcript, as you all know, is already out there,” she responded.
“I think the second piece of this, too, to note is that the attorney general made it clear that law enforcement files like these need to be protected. And so, the president made his determination at the request of the Attorney General. So, just want to make that second point that I made really clear.”
When questioned if the administration believed the tapes could be “politically harmful,” KJP replied:
“I can’t — I don’t want to get into — dive into the specific point that you’re making about the politics. I would have to ser- — refer you to our Counsel’s Office on that. But there were determinations that the president took very seriously on behalf of the — obviously, at the request of the attorney general. And that’s how this decision was made.”
WATCH:
AP’s @SeungMinKim: “But does the White House feel that the recording — the audio could be politically harmful since that point was also raised in the letter?”
KJP: “So, I can’t — I don't want to get into — dive into the specific — uh — uh — point that you're making about the… pic.twitter.com/d0Xytoy13i
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 16, 2024
The reality is that Joe Biden and his staff know their ship is sinking, and they can’t afford anymore bad press.
A new survey from The New York Times revealed more bad news for President Biden as he attempts to catch up to former President Trump in the critical battleground states that will decide the November election.
The poll finds Trump ahead in five of six battleground states, with Wisconsin being the only one where Biden leads.
More troubling for Biden is that the poll revealed that the president is losing support among young voters, as well as Black and Hispanic voters, all of whom are vital to his coalition’s chances of winning reelection.
While Republicans celebrated their triumph, Democrats warned that it was only one survey, over six months before Election Day. However, Biden’s aides admitted that the president must fight harder to win reelection in November.
“With the usual stipulations about polls six months out, Biden is behind,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the Left-leaning think tank Third Way. “They need to be in a better place on the border, crime and inflation to win. They have a story to tell on each and further actions they can take, but they need to get cracking.”
CNN’s Harry Enten, who specializes in polling statistics, said Monday that the New York Times’ numbers from Nevada and Arizona were “an absolute disaster.”
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
