Joe Biden Heard Muttering “What A Stupid Son Of A Bitch” After Inflation Question From Fox News’ Peter Doocy — Update

Ted Johnson
·4 min read

UPDATE: Peter Doocy told Sean Hannity that President Joe Biden called his cell phone and said, “It’s nothing personal, pal.”

“We went back and forth and we were talking about just kind of moving forward. I made sure to tell him that I was going to ask something different than everyone else is asking. And he said, ‘You got to.’ And that is a quote from the president, so I will be doing it.”

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“Did he apologize?” Hannity asked.

“He cleared the air, and I appreciate it. We had a nice call,” Doocy said.

“That doesn’t sound like an apology,” Hannity said.

“He said, ‘It’s nothing personal pal, and I told him I appreciated him reaching out,” Doocy said.

“Hey Sean, the world is on the brink of like World War III with all of this stuff going on. I appreciate that the president took a couple minutes this evening while he was still at his desk to clear the air. I don’t need anyone to apologize to me. He can call me whatever he wants, as long as it gets him talking.”

Hannity said that he thought that Biden should give Doocy a 20 minute sit down to make up for the “SOB comment.” But Doocy said, “That’s enough. We can move on.”

PREVIOUSLY: As reporters were being whisked away from a White House meeting on Monday, Fox News’ Peter Doocy shouted one last question to President Joe Biden.

“Do you think inflation is a political liability …in the midterms?” Doocy could be heard asking.

Biden then could be heard muttering, in a bit of sarcasm, “No, it’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”

The reporters had been brought in to catch a portion of the meeting and Biden’s remarks to his Competition Council, an event on Monday devoted to discussing ways to reduce costs and boost wages.

“Our economy shouldn’t be about people working for capitalism, if should be about capitalism working for people,” Biden said.

As is typical, reporters shouted questions at Biden at the end of his remarks. He answered one, and then White House “wranglers” began to clear the correspondents from the room. That is when Doocy and CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe shouted more questions.

Doocy later talked about the moment with Jesse Watters, co-host of The Five.

“I couldn’t even hear him because people were shouting at us to get out, but then somebody came up to us in the briefing room a few minutes later and said, ‘Did you hear what the president said?’ I said, ‘No, what?’ They said, ‘he called you a stupid SOB.’ And I said, ‘Did he say SOB?’ And the person said, no.”

The Five panel laughed, before Watters joked, “Doocy, I think the president is right. You are a stupid SOB.”

Doocy replied, “Nobody has fact checked him yet and said it’s not true.”

CNN also covered the moment, with its chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, who was there, telling Jake Tapper that “it seemed pretty clear he knew he was on a mic.” “This one seemed a little more blatant, even,” Tapper said.

Biden’s sharp exchanges with reporters typically are complaints with a tinge of playfulness, as when he last year called NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell a “pain in the neck” for asking about an off-topic question following his meeting with the prime minister of Iraq.

He’s had multiple such exchanges with Doocy.

“You always ask me the nicest questions,” Biden said at his press conference last week.

“All right, I got a whole binder full,” Doocy responded.

The president replied, “I know you do. None of them make a lot of sense to me.”

Doocy then asked Biden, “Why are you trying so hard in your first year to pull the country so far to the left?”

Biden denied that and ran through a list of his accomplishments.

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