Did White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre abruptly end a press briefing after Fox News senior correspondent Peter Doocy asked why she, President Biden and Vice President Harris still referred to Donald Trump as a "threat" even after two assassination attempts against the former president? No, that's not true: The social-media video that claims to show Jean-Pierre ending the briefing after this question has been edited to cut out Jean-Pierre's actual five-minute-long response. The White House's livestreamed video of the briefing on YouTube and the briefing's full transcript contain Jean-Pierre's full response.
The edited video (archived here) was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by "il Donaldo Trumpo" on September 17, 2024. The post was captioned:
GET 'EM PETER!!!🎯🔥🔥🔥
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Sep 18 14:59:43 2024 UTC)
The edited clip is 0:32 seconds long. It begins with Jean-Pierre signaling to Doocy, Fox News' senior White House correspondent, that it is his turn to ask a question. Between the 0:03 and 0:24-second marks, Doocy asks:
Thank you, Karine. It's been only two days since somebody allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump again. And you are here at the podium in the White House briefing room calling him a threat. How many more assassination attempts on Donald Trump until the president, and the vice president and you pick a different word to describe Trump other than "threat"?
At this point, 0:25 seconds into the edited clip used in the X post, Jean-Pierre abruptly closes her planner and says:
All right, thanks, everybody. See you tomorrow.
Both of these portions of the edited clip use authentic footage from the White House's September 17, 2024, press briefing, which has been posted on the White House's channel on YouTube. But the five-minute section of footage in which Jean-Pierre responded to Doocy's question, and another three minutes in which she responded to another reporter, were cut out.
The composite image below shows in gray the bracket of time dedicated to Doocy's question. The timestamps of the screenshots are slightly delayed in order to capture the text in the subtitles. (The image will open larger in a new window.)
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with YouTube screenshots taken on Wed Sep 18 17:24:01 2024 UTC)
The following timestamps are from footage of the livestreamed press briefing placed on the White House's YouTube account. The briefing lasted 51:29 minutes.
- Doocy posed the question at 42:55 minutes into the YouTube livestream (above left);
- Jean-Pierre began to respond at 43:20 minutes;
- Doocy interjected and reframed his question at 46:23 minutes;
- Jean-Pierre began to finish her response at 46:39 minutes;
- Jean-Pierre ended the exchange with Doocy by saying, "I'm moving on" at 48:05 minutes (above center);
- Jean-Pierre took questions from another reporter. At 51:18 minutes, she closed her planner and exited the briefing. (above right)
The White House's website published the full transcript of the September 17, 2024, press briefing. This link should skip ahead to Doocy's question.
Jean-Pierre began her response to Doocy by saying, in part, according to the transcript:
Peter, if anything from this administration, I actually completely disagree with the premise of your question.
The question that you're asking, it is also incredibly dangerous in the way that you're asking it, because American people are watching. And to say that -- to say that from a administration who has consistently condemned political violence; from an administration where the president called the former president and was thankful, grateful that he was okay; from an administration who has called out January 6th, called out the attack of Paul Pelosi, called out and said we need to lower the temperature after the Butler incident -- and now for you to make that kind of comment in your question -- because it -- your question involved a comment and a statement -- and, you know, it is -- that is also incredibly dangerous when we have been very clear in -- in condemning political violence from here.
Other fact-checking organizations, including Reuters and USAToday, have reviewed a similar claim that Karine Jean-Pierre avoided questions from Peter Doocy during a May 28, 2024, press briefing.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims mentioning White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre can be found here. Our fact checks of claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
