Karine Jean-Pierre's gives tortured explanation of why of Biden is siding with ... trends now
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to respond to criticism from within the Democratic tent about how President Biden got behind a Republican proposal to block changes to the D.C. criminal code after ripping it just weeks ago on self-governance grounds.
Her effort to explain Biden's posture – he said he will sign the measure if it clears the Senate – came after House Democrats inveighed against both the turnaround and the mixed signals. She was grilled repeatedly on the official Statement of Administration Policy on the Republican resolution that would block the new D.C. law.
'We oppose it, but there was no veto threat. So [I] want to be really clear about: it stated our support for DC statehood, but it did not indicate what the President would do should the bill come to the desk. It did not say that. It did not lay that out. Now we're communicating that very clearly,' she said.
He was against it before he was for it: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained why President Biden would sign a Republican bill blocking changes to D.C.'s criminal code, despite a White House policy statement that he opposes a resolution doing so.
Indeed, the Statement of Administration Policy, known as a SAP, stated opposition to the resolution arguing on statehood and governance grounds – without taking a position on the substance of the D.C. law that the Republican-led House would overturn.
'Even earlier this week, many of you were asking me ... which direction the President was going to go. He never made that clear in that SAP. And I think as it was becoming – we always let the process and Congress go through,' she said.
'As it now looks like it was going to come to his desk, we wanted to communicate where we were going to go,' she said.
She also took some shots at the D.C. law, as Biden did Thursday, saying it 'doesn't actually reform policing practices. That's not something that it does, reform like the ones the President has put forward at the federal level,' she said.
A veto, if Biden chose to cast one, would require a two-thirds majority in each chamber – though it might open up Biden to Republican accusations of being soft on crime.
Jean-Pierre's explanation – Biden is a supporter of statehood for D.C., which has 700,000 residents but not full representation in Congress – came as some House Democrats are boiling over at President Joe Biden's announcement.
Biden announced the change Thursday after a meeting with Senate Democrats where he got asked about it. He cited a policy dispute between D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser and the City Council.
But that didn't satisfy some members of his own party who are accustomed to Republicans seeking to overturn local policy decisions but have counted on Democratic pledges to push D.C. statehood and protect local decision-making authority.
'The White House f***** this up royally,' one House Democrat told The Hill newspaper. The lawmaker said party leaders that Biden was prepared to veto the resolution of disapproval – which likely would have stopped the move.
Some House Democratic lawmakers fumed after President Joe Biden announced he will sign a GOP-backed bill that would override a revised D.C. criminal code. Democratic lawmakers say the move violates home rule principles – and note that the White House was opposed to the bill when it came up in the House
Early last month, the White House Office of Management and Budget had issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing the move as a 'denial
