Hot mic: Biden swears at Fox News reporter for inflation question

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Hit with a shouted question on a politically sensitive point, the president responds with sarcasm, then name-calling.

It is a part of any United States president’s job to smile blithely while reporters loudly shout questions as they are ushered out of the room at the end of a press availability.

But on Monday, President Joe Biden tripped up when he responded with a profane insult to a pointed query from a Fox News reporter.

The president was in the East Room of the White House for a meeting of his Competition Council, an economic group tasked with helping American consumers deal with high prices by changing regulations and enforcing competition laws.

After Biden’s remarks, reporters in the room shouted questions as they were being ushered out.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy, whose network has been relentlessly critical of Biden, asked Biden about US inflation, which is at a nearly 40-year high and has hurt the president’s public approval rating.

Doocy called out, “Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?”

“It’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden said in a low tone, appearing to speak to himself. Then added, “What a stupid son of a b***h” with a slight shake of his head.

Indeed, surging US inflation is a growing political risk for Biden and his Democratic Party which could lose its majority in the US Congress in the upcoming November elections. Persistent inflation has the effect of reducing people’s purchasing power and raising food, fuel and housing costs for households.

The president’s comments were captured on video and by the microphone in front of him.

Doocy laughed it off in a subsequent appearance on his network, joking, “Nobody has fact-checked him yet and said it’s not true.”

He said he did not hear the president’s remarks at the time as he was being ushered out of the room.

Doocy told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Biden called him about an hour after the incident to apologise. Doocy said Biden told him, “It’s nothing personal, pal.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment.

White House officials have insisted repeatedly that they are focused on curbing inflation, with Biden reorienting his economic agenda to address the issue.

But the president has shown a willingness to challenge a media that he deems to be too critical, especially Fox News and Doocy.

At his news conference last week, Biden said to Doocy with sarcasm: “You always ask me the nicest questions.”

“I have a whole binder full,” the reporter answered.

“I know you do,” Biden said. “None of them make a lot of sense to me. Fire away.”

Voting bill collapses, Democrats unable to change filibuster

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In this image from Senate Television, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks on the floor of the U.S. Senate Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Senate Television via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital to protecting democracy collapsed late Wednesday when two senators refused to join their own party in changing Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster after a raw, emotional debate.

The outcome was a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden and his party, coming at the tumultuous close to his first year in office .

Despite a day of piercing debate and speeches that often carried echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed by opponents of civil rights legislation, Democrats could not persuade holdout senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to change the Senate procedures on this one bill and allow a simple majority to advance it.

“I am profoundly disappointed,” Biden said in a statement after the vote.

However, the president said he is “not deterred” and vowed to “explore every measure and use every tool at our disposal to stand up for democracy.”

Voting rights advocates are warning that Republican-led states nationwide are passing laws making it more difficult for Black Americans and others to vote by consolidating polling locations, requiring certain types of identification and ordering other changes.

Vice President Kamala Harris briefly presided over the Senate, able to break a tie in the 50-50 Senate if needed, but she left before the final vote. The rules change was rejected 52-48, with Manchin and Sinema joining the Republicans in opposition.

The nighttime voting brought an end, for now, to legislation that has been a top Democratic priority since the party took control of Congress and the White House.

“This is a moral moment,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.

The Democrats’ bill, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, would make Election Day a national holiday, ensure access to early voting and mail-in ballots — which have become especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic — and enable the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes. It has passed the House.

Both Manchin and Sinema say they support the legislation, but Democrats fell far short of the 60 votes needed to push the bill over the Republican filibuster. It failed to advance 51-49 on a largely party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., cast a procedural vote against so the bill could be considered later.

Next, Schumer put forward a rules change for a “talking filibuster” on this one bill. It would require senators to stand at their desks and exhaust the debate before holding a simple majority vote, rather than the current practice that simply allows senators to privately signal their objections.

But that, too, failed because Manchin and Sinema were unwilling to change the Senate rules a party-line vote by Democrats alone.

Emotions were on display during the floor debate.

When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky whether he would pause for a question, McConnell left the chamber, refusing to respond.

Durbin said he would have asked McConnell, “Does he really believe that there’s no evidence of voter suppression?”

The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said at one point, “I am not a racist.”

McConnell, who led his party in doing away with the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees during Donald Trump’s presidency, warned against changing the rules again.

McConnell derided the “fake hysteria” from Democrats over the states’ new voting laws and called the pending bill a federal takeover of election systems. He admonished Democrats in a fiery speech and said doing away with filibuster rules would “break the Senate.”

Manchin drew a roomful of senators for his own speech, upstaging the president’s news conference and defending the filibuster. He said changing to a majority-rule Senate would only add to the “dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart.”

Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked across the Capitol for the proceedings. “We want this Senate to act today in a favorable way. But if it don’t, we ain’t giving up,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest-ranking Black member of Congress.

Manchin did open the door to a more tailored package of voting law changes, including to the Electoral Count Act, which was tested during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. He said senators from both parties are working on that and it could draw Republican support.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said a bipartisan coalition should work on legislation to ensure voter access, particularly in far-flung areas like her state, and to shore up Americans’ faith in democracy.

“We don’t need, we do not need a repeat of 2020 when by all accounts our last president, having lost the election, sought to change the results,” said Murkowski.

She said the Senate debate had declined to a troubling state: “You’re either a racist or a hypocrite. Really, really? Is that where we are?”

At one point, senators broke out in applause after a spirited debate between Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, among the more experienced lawmakers, and new Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., over the history of the Voting Rights Act.

Sinema sat in her chair throughout much of the day’s the debate, largely glued to her phone, but rose to her feet to deliver her vote against the rules change.

In a statement, Sinema said the outcome “must not be the end of our work to protect our democracy.” But she warned, “these challenges cannot be solved by one party or Washington alone.”

Schumer contended the fight is not over and he ridiculed Republican claims that the new election laws in the states will not end up hurting voter access and turnout, comparing it to Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats decided to press ahead despite the potential for high-stakes defeat as Biden is marking his first year in office with his priorities stalling out in the face of solid Republican opposition and the Democrats’ inability to unite around their own goals. They wanted to force senators on the record — even their own party’s holdouts — to show voters where they stand.

Once reluctant himself to change Senate rules, Biden has stepped up his pressure on senators to do just that. But the push from the White House, including Biden’s blistering speech last week in Atlanta comparing opponents to segregationists , is seen as too late.

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show the name of the act tested by Jan. 6 events is the Electoral Count Act, not the Electoral College Act.

President Joe Biden Makes Ice Cream Stop at Jeni’s in Capitol Hill

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The big unanswered question of the Biden presidency: when—and where—will the Ice-Cream-Lover-in-Chief get his first local scoop? Turns out the answer is Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams on Barracks Row. The President made a quick pitstop at the ice cream shop this afternoon after a visit to neighboring boutique Honey Made, where he admired necklaces on the wall for “my wife,” examined a coaster with a German shepherd on it, and picked up a Kamala Harris mug, according to a pool report.

Products at Honey Made include RBG and ⁦@KamalaHarris⁩ mugs and oven mitts. pic.twitter.com/pinVLfCg62 — Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) January 25, 2022

Early pool reports are vague, however, on what Biden ordered at Jeni’s other than it was a cone with two scoops—”light colored flavor on bottom, darker ice cream on top.” (UPDATE: It was salted peanut butter ice cream with chocolate flecks plus a scoop of blackout chocolate cake on a waffle cone.) POTUS waved the cone at pool reporters before heading off in his motorcade.

Jeni’s is an obvious choice for Biden; He’s already chummy with the owner of the Ohio-based chain, Jeni Britton Bauer. “Once, I got a call while in a board meeting — it was him. Just telling me hello and that he was eating our ice cream. He ended the call with ‘I love ya, kiddo’, or something of that nature — and I returned it. ‘I love you, Joe,’” Britton Bauer wrote on Instagram the day after his inauguration. Now she considers him “a friend, and even something of a mentor” and has posted photos of them hugging. Jeni’s previously offered a limited edition “White House Chocolate Chip”—the prez’s favorite flavor.

If it’s above freezing, then it’s ice cream weather. pic.twitter.com/o8TOL05h3X — President Biden (@POTUS) January 25, 2022

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Join the conversation!

Opinion | Joe Biden Would Like to Know What Your Problem Is

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Gail: Always good to hear you say something I disagree with.

Bret: People should be kindly encouraged to get vaccinated. Businesses and schools should also be able to require vaccines, on the “our house, our rules” principle. And I have no objection to regular testing. But government mandates are a different matter, especially considering the fact that fully vaccinated people can still transmit the virus. If the primary justification for a mandate is to make better health choices for people who won’t make the choices for themselves, I think that’s a basic infringement on individual freedom.

Gail: Gonna argue with you there, but first, finish your thoughts.

Bret: About the next election, if the fourth year of the Biden administration resembles the first, particularly when it comes to inflation, I’ll be hard-pressed to vote for him. And so, I suspect, will many of the people who supported him last time.

Which brings me to my latest hobby horse, which is to get Biden to announce early that he won’t run again so other Democrats can start exploring a run. Critics of the idea think it turns him into a lame duck, but I think it would look statesmanlike and actually strengthen his hand. Am I wrong?

Gail: I’ve been thinking about that, and at this point I’d say yeah, you’re wrong. If he officially announces he’s out this early in the game, it’ll kick off a two-and-a-half-year campaign for the nomination. In the age of the internet that’s just … too long.

As far as strengthening Biden’s hand, I just don’t see it. We’re talking more than 35 months of lame duck.

Bret: Isn’t every re-elected president an automatic lame duck, because they can’t run for a third term? Biden can still get a lot done in 35 months, without sitting on the rest of the Democratic Party like a wet blanket on a cold day. And we can all stop pretending that we’re totally OK with the idea of an 86-year-old president, which is what Biden would be at the end of a second term.

Gail: Yeah, I see your point. But I don’t see why he should do an official announcement yet. If you don’t have to be a lame duck, why volunteer to hobble when you waddle?

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