OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy verbally battled with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday during her daily briefing after he accused President Joe Biden of being “MIA” on the anti-Israel protests sweeping college and university campuses.
After weeks of escalating violence and on-campus squatting, law enforcement has intervened in several states where students established encampments to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and the severance of all ties between their schools and Israel amid the conflict in the region. At Columbia University in New York, the NYPD cleared out an administrative building that protesters had occupied as part of their demonstration.
Doocy accused the president of being largely silent on the anti-Israel protests, which KJP denied.
“I understand that President Biden historically has spoken very forcefully about antisemitism, but this week, he’s not. He’s MIA. Is he that worried about losing the youth vote with these protesters?” Doocy asked.
“I’m going to be mindful. You’re talking about the youth vote. You’re talking about 2024,” Jean-Pierre said.
At that, Doocy attempted to interrupt, but Jean-Pierre cut him off.
“No, no, no, no. I — I have to say what I have to say and just give me a second,” she said, going on to recite several policies she says younger Americans support, such as Biden’s legally and constitutionally questionable student loan giveaways.
“The president has taken a lot of policy actions here that he knows that young people care about and a lot of those actions are popular with those young folks, whether it’s giving a little bit of breathing room with student debt relief — so we made announcement today, as a matter of fact, and we are going to continue to do that, because we think it’s important as families or as an American and you’re coming out of college and you want to build a family [and] buy a home, you have the opportunity to do that and not be crushed by student debt,” she began.
“The president understands how important it is to deal with that issue. Climate change [is] something that young people really truly care about,” she continued. “One of the crises that the president said he came into having to deal with was the climate change crisis.
“This is a president who has taken more — who has taken aggressive, aggressive action to deal with climate crisis. You know, look, I can’t speak to youth voters or their support, but we’re going to continue to take actions that we believe helps all Americans and all communities,” she added.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Doocy also inquired as to whether Biden is seeking an investigation into whether “agitators” at the campus protests received support from foreign entities. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) attributed much of the heightened tensions during protests to “outside agitators” and expressed his intention to “look into” whether they have backing from foreign influences.
“We’re being told that there are professional outside agitators involved. We don’t know if they’re being paid to sow chaos by domestic folks or foreign entities. Does President Biden want his administration to find out who is funding some of these protests?” Doocy asked.
Jean-Pierre responded by saying that state and local police would be handling such investigations but added that the Justice Department and the FBI would offer assistance.
“The DOJ and FBI is going to continue to offer support to universities and colleges with respect to federal laws, so that is something that the DOJ and FBI is doing,” she said. “As far as local organizations and what is all being reported on the ground, that is something that I’m [sure] that local law enforcement, I’m certain, is looking into.”
