(HorizonPost.com) – The White House accused a North Carolina radio station of editing its interview with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and adding a dial tone sound effect to make it appear that she abruptly hung up on them, The Hill reported.
While the president was in North Carolina last Tuesday, Jean-Pierre did a call-in interview with WBT radio host Mark Garrison in Charlotte.
During the interview, Garrison told Jean-Pierre that some of the people he had spoken to that day about his interview with her suggested that he ask her if President Biden had dementia.
A snippy Jean-Pierre accused Garrison of asking “an incredibly offensive question,” but Garrison insisted that it was something many people ask about the president.
Jean-Pierre told Garrison that he was taking the interview down a “rabbit hole” and offered the White House’s canned answers to concerns over the president’s health.
She said Biden’s physicians have given him a clean bill of health and noted that for those who “watch him every day,” and pay attention to his accomplishments, it was clear that Biden was “focused” and his actions “historic.”
Jean-Pierre added that she rejected the “premise” of Garrison’s question which she described as “incredibly insulting.” She then insisted he move on.
Garrison followed up by asking about consumer costs and how the president planned to win over North Carolina voters when prices were still high.
Jean-Pierre insisted that prices have fallen due to the president’s accomplishments. She then thanked Garrison for the interview and signed off saying, “Have an amazing, amazing day.”
At that moment, a dial tone was heard playing and the radio hosts at WBT expressed surprise that Jean-Pierre hung up on them.
Unsurprisingly, the audio clip went viral on social media and right-leaning blogs, with most of the responses mocking Jean-Pierre for dramatically hanging up when asked about Biden’s dementia.
However, in a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesman Andrew Bates accused WBT of manufacturing the controversy by adding the sound effect of a dial tone at the end of the interview.
Bates explained that during the president’s travels, Jean-Pierre does multiple interviews with local stations, each of which is offered only seven minutes of her time. When WBT’s seven minutes were up, the press secretary rang off to call the next radio station.
Bates insisted that WBT did not air the full interview with Jean-Pierre but chose instead to edit it down and add the dial tone sound effect. He added that the phone Jean-Pierre used does not make that dial tone sound when a call ends.
Copyright 2024, HorizonPost.com
