At a White House conference on food insecurity on Wednesday, President Joe Biden inquired about the whereabouts of a congresswoman who passed away a month earlier.
Biden took a moment during his remarks at the event, which marked the first White House hunger conference since 1969, to acknowledge a number of elected officials from both parties. The bill establishing Wednesday’s conference had the support of all the individuals he named, and it had the late Indiana Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski as a cosponsor.
“I want to thank all of you here for including bipartisan elected officials like Rep. (Jim) McGovern, Sen. (Mike) Braun, Sen. (Cory) Booker, Representative – Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I think she wasn’t going to be here – to help make this a reality.”
President Joe Biden Asks If Deceased Congresswoman Is Present At White House Conference
Walorski, 58, passed away in a car accident last month that also claimed the lives of two of her employees. In 2013, she started her tenure in Congress. The congresswoman served as co-chair of the House Hunger Caucus before her death. Later on, Wednesday, when questioned about the remark by reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre clarified that Biden had in fact made reference to Walorski.
On Wednesday, when reporters repeatedly questioned him about Biden’s remarks at the conference, Jean-Pierre tensely reacted. Despite being questioned about it several times during the White House press conference, Jean-Pierre refused to say whether Biden had erred. Instead, she argued that the late congresswoman was on the President’s mind when he made the remark, and she even referred to a reporter as “rude” at one point for raising the subject. After reading the President’s comments regarding Walorski to Jean-Pierre, she reacted,
“I totally understand. I just explained – she was top of mind. You know, what we were able to witness today and what the President was able to lift up at this conference, at this event was how her focus on wanting to deal with, combat food insecurity in America. And it’s something he was lifting up and honoring.”
What do you think? What will Biden have to say next? Let us know in the comments below.
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