Karine Jean-Pierre ended an interview with a local North Carolina radio station on Tuesday rather suddenly, to the surprise of the reporter and host.
The White House press secretary spoke to 99.3 WBT Charlotte News Director Mark Garrison ahead of President Biden’s visit to Raleigh. Garrison spoke on “The Brett Winterble Show” about the experience, where clips from the interview were played.
At one point, Garrison questioned whether Biden has “dementia,” stating that “a number of people” he told about the interview requested that he ask her that.
Jean-Pierre called the question “incredibly offensive” and called out Garrison for “taking us down this rabbit hole.”
WATCH: KARINE JEAN-PIERRE STORMS OUT OF WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING WHEN PRESSED BY AFRICAN REPORTER
After defending Biden’s record, she said, “And so I’m not even going to truly, truly, really, you know, take, take the premise of your question. I think it is incredibly insulting. And, and so we can, you know, we can move on to the next question.”
In his next question, he asked Jean-Pierre about rising gas and grocery prices.
“How does Mr. Biden win votes when people don’t have as much disposable income?” Garrison asked.
“Look, the president understands. He grew up in a middle-class, working-class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He gets it. He understands how difficult it is for Americans who are sitting around their kitchen table every month trying to figure out what they’re going to pay for. You have to remember, when the president walked into this administration, there were multiple crises happening,” Jean-Pierre replied.
She continued, “There was COVID, the economy was in a tailspin because of the last administration, because of what President Trump left us with. Now you’re asking me about gas prices. The president took action on gas prices. Let’s not forget Russia’s invasion on Ukraine skyrocketed prices of gas. And because the president took action, we see we are in a different place than we were a year ago in gas prices. Eggs, milk, seafood products, all the important groceries, those costs have gone down because of what this president has been able to do.”
“And, and with that, thank you so much, Mark. Have an amazing, amazing day,” Jean-Pierre closed before abruptly ending the call.
After Jean-Pierre abruptly ended the call, a busy signal could be heard and Winterble reacted in shock, “Wow, wow, wow,” while Garrison laughed.
“Listen, I am nominating you to get a press corps badge, and you need to go to the White House,” Winterble told Garrison. “I’m sorry, but you asked three, four incredibly salient, important questions that are all front of mind. Nothing out of bounds. No baba booeying or anything like that, right? And you did it exactly right on. I don’t understand the fragility of this person.”
Garrison noted that it was the White House that reached out for the interview, “I was supposed to get more time with her and the fact that, all of a sudden, she decided to just hang up the phone took me by surprise because I had a couple of questions that weren’t as controversial. But I’ll never get to ask them, I guess.”
Garrison revealed that additional clips of the interview would likely be released in a morning show. Radio host Pete Kaliner later aired more audio from the interview on his show, remarking that the full raw footage was approximately six minutes.
In a comment to Fox News Digital, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said, “As she often does when the President travels, Karine had multiple back-to-back interviews with radio stations who were each offered 7 minutes. Once the agreed-upon time was over, she called into the next interview so everyone could get their full time.”
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He added, “This particular station chose not to air the full interview and instead artificially attached a sound effect that our phones do not make when calls end.”
