Speech Or Silence: Karine Jean Pierre Thinks Questions Are "Misinformation"

Her Press Briefing Tantrum Says More Than She Realizes

Karine Jean Pierre, the newly-elevated Senior Advisor To The President and White House Press Secretary, forgot the most important rule of question-and-answer sessions: do not lose your cool.

Anyone who has done any sort of public speaking, and especially anyone who has had to field questions in the open, ad-hoc format of a press briefing, has undoubtedly encountered the particular stresses of that task.

You have to formulate a reasoned and reasonable answer to a question on the fly, at least sounding as if you are answering the question, while avoiding stepping on any toes or rhetorical landmines.

If you know your material well, it can actually be fun!

Karine Jean Pierre did not have fun yesterday. She would have done better to just stuck to the facts, or even just dodged the question altogether. Instead, she chose to have a public meltdown over “misinformation.”

You can (and should) watch the full exchange above, but the transcript of what was said is worth reading, as it highlights not just actual “misinformation” but illustrates why the authoritarian left is so obsessed with controlling information flows and combatting “misinformation”.

Peter Doocy: And on this issue of funding, the administration has money to send to Lebanon without Congress coming back. But Congress does have to come back to approve money to send to people in North Carolina. Do I have that right?

Karine Jean Pierre: Here's what I'm going to be very clear about.

The President and the Vice President has had a robust, whole-of-government response to this. Hundreds of millions of dollars. I said it at the top, more than $200 million that we have directly put towards survivors here for disaster help. And that's because of this President's commitment to make sure that we are there for communities that are impacted.

We take this very seriously again. We take this very seriously.

And before the hurricane hit, we prepositioned more than 1,500 federal folks on the ground to help. And so we have made sure that every state has gotten their storm-requested emergency declaration. They requested it, and we made sure they received it. We've taken this very seriously. More than $200 million that we have provided to the impacted areas. But instead, people want to do disinformation, misinformation, which is dangerous. Which is dangerous.

Because then when folks on the ground hear that, they may not want to ask for the help that they need that is there for them that is there for them that's our focus here.

Peter Doocy: But president Biden is fond of saying show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. If he's got money for people in Lebanon right now, without Congress having to come back, what does it say about his values? There is not enough money right now for people in North Carolina who need it. That's not misinformation.

Karine Jean Pierre: Wait...No, that is...Your whole premise of the question is misinformation, sir. Yes, yes, it's misinformation.

Peter Doocy: Which part?

Karine Jean Pierre: I just mentioned to you that we provided more than $200 million to folks who are impacted in the area. And I just shared with you that people are deciding not to. People are deciding not to.

Peter Doocy: President sent a letter to Congress that there's not enough money to help North Carolina

Karine Jean Pierre: We're talking about the SBA disaster loan.

Peter Doocy: That's money for people in North Carolina.

Karine Jean Pierre: Yes. And that's important. And people in North Carolina need that.

Wait, this is nothing new. Peter, this is nothing new.

Congress comes together, they provide money, millions of dollars, for disaster relief. We're asking them to do the job that they have been doing for some time.

Peter Doocy: And I'm reading from a letter that President Biden sent to Johnson, McConnell, Schumer, and Jeffries. The President's letter is not misinformation. Would you agree?

Karine Jean Pierre: No the way you're asking me the question is misinformation there is money that we are allocating to the impacted areas and there's money there to help people who truly need it there are survivors who need the funding who need the funding and it's there.

Peter Doocy: You can't call a question you don't like misinformation

Karine Jean Pierre: I said that i actually said we have the money available to help uh survivors of hurricane Helene and also hurricane Milton. now...Now, there's going to be a shortfall, right? Because we don't know how bad Hurricane Milton is going to be. And so we're going to need additional funding. We're going to need additional funding.

Peter Doocy: That's exactly what I just asked about. And you said it was misinformation.

Karine Jean Pierre: No.

What you're asking me is why Congress needs to come back and do their job. That's what you're asking me.

Congress needs to come back and do their job and provide extra assistance, extra funding to disaster relief fund. That's what Congress needs to do, and we're going to continue to urge that.

You may not want that, but that's okay. That's what this president wants, and that's what the vice president wants.

Thanks, everybody.

And with that, she walked away from the podium in an obvious huff.

The public speaker in me just shook my head, as I thought to myself “amateur.”

There is no doubt that it was an amateurish response. As Press Secretary, as the person at the podium, it is her job to do better with questions like that.

The crux of Peter Doocy’s question was simply this: how is it that the (Biden-)Harris Administration has $157 million to send to Lebanon without asking for funds from Congress, but has to ask for funds from Congress to attend to the needs of people devastated by Hurricane Helene (and about to be devastated by Huricane Milton)?

Both Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Kamala Harris took victory laps over the weekend regarding the funding for Lebanon.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Joe Biden sent a letter to the leades of Congress, asking them to come back into session to approve supplemental funding for FEMA.

In addition, while FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year.  Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs.  The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term.

Even if one assumes there is nothing untoward about sending aid money to Lebanon, given Israel’s ongoing war against Hezbollah and Hamas, the timing of the announcement, given the dire circumstance people are experiencing in Appalachia, should give anyone pause.

Ultimately, that was the subtext of Peter Doocy’s question: why is it okay to send $157 million to Lebanon right away but the people of Appalachia have to wait for Congress to reconvene?

Politics notwithstanding, it’s a fair question.

It does not help matters when, in the same weekend, FEMA announces that its total expenditures on Hurricane Helene relief is at $137 million.

FEMA continues its robust response and recovery efforts in the Southeast following the devastation caused by Helene. Federal assistance for survivors has now surpassed $137 million, with FEMA’s mission remaining steadfast in helping communities recover and rebuild. 

$137 million is a lot of money….but it’s not $157 million.

The net effect of the optics here is that the people of Lebanon are being prioritized over the American people.

The (Biden-)Harris Administration can reject that all they want, and can complain loudly about the characterization, but there is no escaping the inevitability of the comparison.

That comparison looks even worse when one considers the numerous reports from people on the ground detailing all the ways in which FEMA is not delivering a “robust reponse.”

There’s Tulsi Gabbard’s homage to the people of Appalachia.

In both cases, I stood in awe of their resilience, strength, and what we in Hawaii call the aloha spirit — even those who lost everything, stepping up to do all they can for their neighbors, friends, and those in need.

Unfortunately, much like we saw on Maui, there are still many people who are not getting the assistance they need. Communications are still down in many isolated areas and small towns. The closest thing they have to emergency services is a volunteer fire department. Their limited emergency resources have been quickly overwhelmed and nobody from FEMA has come or knocked on their door to offer assistance.

There’s the experience of Chelsea Atkins, of Bat Cave, North Carolina, who’s given up on FEMA.

“FEMA called me and told me they wanted to inspect my house then called me back to say they couldn’t drive around the ‘road closed’ sign. They weren’t allowed,” local Chelsea Atkins, 38, told The Post.

“You can drive it by car for sure, it’s not that bad, you just have to drive around the ‘road closed sign’. I explained that to them. They said they couldn’t,” she said, recounting her maddening exchange with the embattled federal agency.

Left to fend for themselves, Bat Cave residents banded together — opening the roads and starting the arduous work of cleanup and recovery. Residents told The Post that they don’t need FEMA now — and at this point, they don’t even want the disaster relief agency to come.

There’s the observations of Congressman Cory Mills, who’s been spearheading a number of volunteer efforts in North Carolina.

In Asheville, folks got tired of waiting on FEMA, so local organizations took point in organizing relief and recovery efforts.

While Buncombe County had not yet set up aid distribution stations in the aftermath of the historic floods from Tropical Storm Helene, one nonprofit had taken it into their own hands — soliciting another national nonprofit to send aid.

Asheville Dream Center brought aid to the Asheville Mall on Sept. 29, likely becoming the first mass aid distribution site for necessities in the city. The nonprofit is the local arm of the nonprofit national Dream Center outreach ministry. The nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission was the first to respond to their call to distribute aid in the city, Asheville Dream Center Executive Director Michelle Coleman said.

Meanwhile, there are reports that residents in the area cannot even get enough body bags to properly attend to the dead.

It goes without saying that such reports suggest the death toll from Helene is considerably greater than has been reported thus far.

WIth such reports in hand, it is not possible to even doubt the extremity in which the residents of Appalachia now find themselves.

Their communities have been devastated. Their civic infrastructures have been destroyed. Their homes have been flooded and washed away. Their friends and loved ones have been killed.

Against this backdrop, Secretary of State Blinken and Kamala Harris decide to crow about sending millions of aid dollars—millions of US taxpayer dollars—to….Lebanon.

To which the only sane response can be “Whisky Tango Foxtrot?”

To be sure, the pots of money from which foreign aid comes are different from the pots of money from which disaster relief funding comes. As an accounting principle, government agencies are not supposed to be able to move funds around without Congressional oversight and approval. The Constitution gives Congress the clear power of the purse and so only Congress can approve such transfers.

Yet, as Peter Doocy pointed out in his contratemps with Karine Jean Pierre, “show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.” It’s a quote that gets attributed to Joe Biden quite a bit.

The (Biden-)Harris Administration had budgeted enough money foreign aid that it just “happened” to have an idle $157 million laying around for when Israel expanded its war against Hezbollah, but didn’t budget nearly that much money for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.

The (Biden-)Harris Administration had budgeted over $1 billion for FEMA’s “Shelter And Services” program, and not for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.

FEMA, under the (Biden-)Harris Administration, prioritizes such “equity” over disaster relief, according to its own strategic vision and goals statement.

According to the (Biden-)Harris Administration budget, there is a clear inference to be made that nostrums of “equity” and supporting undocumented and illegal aliens enterying the United States get preferential treatment to ordinary Americans with the temerity to be born here and actually be US citizens.

Still, the State Department is not the Department of Homeland Security. Their budgets are different. Ultimately, that was (and is) the answer to Peter Doocy’s question.

The United States government has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. It has to execute foreign policy and domestic policy at the same time. That means it will from time to time disburse foreign aid at the same time it is disbursing FEMA disaster relief funds.

Doocy probably would not have been exactly satisfied with that answer—because in many ways it is not a satisfactory answer—but it is an answer. An answer was the one thing that Karine Jean Pierre did not actually get around to giving, and it was clear that it was the answer that made her uncomfortable.

She did answer the question because she did not want to answer the question.

The political problem with the answer to Peter Doocy’s question is that from every perspective it makes the Administration appear to have some misplaced priorities.

It is politically problematic to place the disaster relief needs of other nations ahead of the disaster relief needs of American citizens.

It is politically dicey to place the shelter needs of illegal aliens ahead of the disaster relief needs of American citizens.

Arguably, however, that is exactly what the (Biden-)Harris Administration is doing.

That is what made Doocy’s question “misinformation.” Not that he was employing an invalid framework for his questions—he wasn’t—nor that he was stating something that was untrue—he wasn’t doing that, either—but that he was challenging the priorities and even the ethics of the Administration.

To Karine Jean Pierre, questioning the regime is the equal of misinformation Questioning the regime is the epitome of misinformation. It is very dangerous, or so she argued, to give rise to any doubt in people’s minds about whether the (Biden-)Harris Administration is a positive force for good. Let people think that the (Biden-)Harris Administration is anything but awesome and people might not dutifully line up and do as they are told.

The regime, apparently, must never be questioned. The regime must always be seen as acting in the best interests of the American People. Any question which even hints otherwise, or portrays the Administration in a bad light, is, to Jean Pierre, “misinformation”.

Contrary to what Peter Doocy said to her, she can—and will—declare any question she does not like to be “misinformation.”

This is why the notion of “misinformation” is so dangerous, why the mere acceptance of the term is inimical to Free Speech.

Labeling anything as “misinformation” is a none-too-subtle attempt to delegitimize it. Dismissing a question as “misinformation” is to imply the question is, somehow, a wrong question to ask.

Calling Peter Doocy’s question “misinformation” is to imply that Tulsi Gabbard’s experience, Cory Mills’ experience, and the experiences of people throughout Appalachia are somehow invalid and wrong. Calling his question “misinformation” is to iimply that these individuals all managed to miss all the wonderful and miraculous work that is being done by FEMA.

To Karine Jean Pierre, such impertinent questions and all that occasion them must be invalid, and therefore not merely silenced but also ridiculed and demeaned. To do otherwise is to invite into the discussion an unacceptable possibility—that the (Biden-)Harris Administration might actually be wrong about something.

Such is the cult of personality that surrounds the (Biden-)Harris Administration. Such is the psychotic and delusional mindset of the Administration and its faithful apparatchik. In their world, the duo of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is the most successful Administration ever, the most empathetic Administration ever, the most intelligent and insightful Administration ever.

In the real world, the (Biden-)Harris Administration is alternately stupid and silly. In the real world, the duo of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are sadistic even as they are sloppy. In the real world, the duo of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are alternately idiotic, invidious, and insane.

In the real world, neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris can understand why people might find it objectionable that their Administration spends $157 million on aid to Lebanon but can’t find two fresh nickels to rub together for the Americans living in Appalachia.

Karine Jean Pierre literally cannot handle even a slight encounter with reality. And it shows.