A presidential candidate’s authenticity seems like something voters might like to have confirmed. The same holds true for her competence and basic respect for her audience.
Unfortunately, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre disagrees.
At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Jean-Pierre — commonly known as KJP — refused to entertain a question from her nemesis, Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who asked the press secretary how long Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has spoken with a fake “southern accent.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” KJP replied.
“Well — ” Doocy began.
“I mean, this is — ” the press secretary said in a dismissive tone that suggested she either had no interest in understanding Doocy’s question or that she actually did understand his reference but pretended otherwise.
“She was talking about unions in Detroit using one tone of voice,” Doocy added.
“Ugh. Is this something that you think — ” KJP interjected.
Is Peter Doocy the best White House reporter?
“Same line,” Doocy continued, undeterred by interruptions. “Same line that she — she used the same line in Pittsburgh, and it sounded like she at least had some kind of a southern drawl.”
On Monday, Harris delivered Labor Day speeches in Detroit and Pittsburgh — two cities long associated with organized labor.
Doocy called Harris’s manner of speaking a “southern drawl.” On the social media platform X, in fact, some users thought she sounded like the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn.
In truth, however, she sounded far less funny and far more condescending than that endearing rooster.
In fact, readers who have not yet seen the side-by-side clips of her Detroit and Pittsburgh speeches must hear how she spoke in order to believe the vice president’s audacity.
Dear residents of Detroit,
Does it bother you that Kamala Harris put on that fake accent for YOU?
Everything about this woman and her campaign is FAKE and she has nothing to offer except for very temporary pandering.#Detroit #Pittsburgh #Unions pic.twitter.com/QXp4qQru5B
— Jenn Cheng (@THATJennCheng) September 2, 2024
Here are two more side-by-side clips. Note the “insane” shift in her accent on the words “64 days.”
Omg listen to how Kamala Harris says “64 days” in Detroit vs. how she says it in Pittsburgh just a couple hours apart..
The accent change is insane pic.twitter.com/Gwo1lRnS76
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) September 2, 2024
Based on that second set of clips, Doocy clearly did KJP a favor. After all, he asked about Harris’s shifting accent when he could have asked what on earth the vice president meant by “the most election of our lives.”
Furthermore, that was not the first time Harris referred to the 2024 election as the “most election.”
“You know, every election cycle we talk about this is the most election of our lifetime. Lawrence, this one is,” the word-salad-prone vice president told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell in December.
Thus, Doocy probably should have asked KJP if Harris drinks too much, or has had a lobotomy or something that would explain her incoherence.
Nonetheless, the press secretary bristled even at Doocy’s relatively tame question about the vice president’s accents.
“Do you think Americans seriously think that this is an important question?” KJP asked.
The press secretary then spent the next 30 seconds lecturing Doocy on the issues about which Americans really care.
Again, the smiling Fox News reporter persisted. He seemed to know that he had prompted the defensive reaction he desired.
“Is that how she talks in meetings here?” Doocy asked.
“Peter, we’re moving on. We’re so moving on,” KJP replied.
One wonders, of course, what President Joe Biden’s staffers really think of Harris. After all, the Democratic Party’s coup against Biden elevated a vice president whom everyone with ears can instantly recognize as a nincompoop.
Furthermore, Harris has appeared to flip-flop on policy positions while also trying to distance herself from Biden’s catastrophic record. How long will Biden loyalists refrain from voicing their apparent frustration and resentment?
For now, at least, KJP has chosen to deflect uncomfortable questions about a vice president whom, in private moments, she surely acknowledges as a complete fraud.
