US President Joe Biden addressed a deceased Republican MP in a speech on Wednesday, prompting many questions during White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre’s daily briefing.
“Where’s Jackie?” the 79-year-old Democrat asked during a speech dedicated to fighting obesity and food insecurity.
“I want to thank everyone who is here,” Joe Biden said, mentioning two other lawmakers particularly involved in these issues, a Republican and a Democrat. In the process, he appeared to search the room for former House member Jackie Walorski, a Republican-elect from Indiana who died in early August in a car accident, who was highly committed to fighting malnutrition.
“I was thinking about her a lot”
The elected official had actively contributed to the preparation of a major summit dedicated to this issue, during which Joe Biden spoke on Wednesday. The White House had published a statement after his death in which the US president said he was “shocked and saddened.”
Bombarded with questions about this on Wednesday to find out if Joe Biden had forgotten the congressman was dead, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t really answer.
“He thought very strongly of her” during this event to which she had actively contributed, the spokesperson only said.
“I don’t find it disturbing,” he said again to the journalists who insisted. Karine Jean-Pierre added that Joe Biden had already planned to meet with the family of the deceased parliamentarian on Friday, on the occasion of the signing of a law, to pay tribute to his “remarkable” fight against malnutrition.
Source: BFM TV
