President Biden caught on hot mic calling Fox News reporter ‘SOB’
On "Hannity" Monday night, Peter Doocy described how Biden personally called him later and "cleared the air."
At the end of a press conference Monday night, President Joe Biden was peppered with questions from White House reporters, including one from Peter Doocy of Fox News Channel.
Doocy asked the president if inflation would be a hindrance in the upcoming midterm elections. Per NBC News, Biden appeared to turn slightly toward the person sitting next to him and said: “No, that’s a great asset — more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”
The comment quickly went viral on social media, with several pundits comparing Biden’s off-the-cuff remark on a hot mic to attacks against the media by the previous president.
“President Trump said bad things about the press all the time. He was rebuked for it,” Cook Political Report editor and publisher Amy Walter opined on PBS News Hour Monday night about Biden’s hot mic moment. “This is following a behavior that the then-candidate and newly elected President Biden said he wouldn’t engage in.”
However, there are plenty who disagreed with the comparison. “Biden calling a Fox News reporter a dumb SOB on a hot mic is NOT THE SAME as Trump’s attacks on the press. The both sides-ism is gonna be the death of us,” Naima Cochrane wrote on Twitter. “Trump openly insulted, scolded and berated press, had their creds revoked, at a point stopped having briefings altogether. Biden muttered something under his breath while moving on.”
“Also,” she added, “it was a stupid question.”
For his part, the president personally called Doocy Monday regarding the comment.
Appearing on Hannity, the Fox White House correspondent and son of Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy spoke of their earlier conversation. “He said, ‘It’s nothing personal, pal,'” reported the younger Doocy. “And we went back and forth, and we were talking about just kind of moving forward, and I made sure to tell him that I’m always gonna try to ask something different than what everybody else is asking. And he said, ‘You got to.’ And that’s a quote from the president, so I’ll keep doing it.”
When show host Sean Hannity asked if Biden had apologized, Doocy said, “He cleared the air, and I appreciate it.”
“We had a nice call,” Doocy added, mentioning again that Biden told him it wasn’t personal. “And I told him that I appreciate him reaching out. Hey, Sean, the world is on the brink of, like, World War III right now with all of this stuff going on. I appreciate that the president took a couple of minutes out this evening while he was still at this desk to give me a call and clear the air.”
“I don’t need anybody to apologize to me. He can call me whatever he wants as long as it gets him talking!” said Doocy of Biden. “I think that’s enough. That’s enough. So we can move on. We can now move forward. There will be years, three to seven years of opportunities to ask him about different stuff.”
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