White House press secretary loses patience with repetitive question from Fox reporter on migrants

Television reporters often ask repetitive questions to let their network avoid having to air a competitor’s employee

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday ended up in a testy exchange with Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich after the reporter asked a question that had already been covered in the day’s daily briefing.

Ms Jean-Pierre spent a significant portion of Friday’s session discussing the Biden administration’s response to Republican governors using buses and airplanes to send asylum-seekers to Democratic-led jurisdictions to punish state and local leaders for not supporting harsher border policies.

At one point during the daily briefing, Ms Jean-Pierre was asked if the administration had considered moving migrants from the communities where they entered the US to other parts of the country to relieve overcrowding in those areas.

She responded that there are “always conversations happening about how to deal with changing circumstances at the border and improve border processing systems” but did not go into detail about any new policies that may or may not be adopted by the administration.

Six minutes later, she called on Ms Heinrich, who asked: “Why would the President turned down a DHS plan to move migrants to the northern border to relieve some of the crowding at the southern border?”

Ms Jean-Pierre replied that she was “just asked” about that same subject.

“That's been already asked and answered. I just I literally just answered that question,” she said as Ms Heinrich tried interrupting to press her further on whether the president turned down a plan to relocate migrants north to alleviate overcrowding.

She cut the Fox reporter off, telling her that she could review the White House transcript of Friday’s briefing if she was having trouble understanding her previous answer.