White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared flummoxed again Monday by the baby formula crisis as she was unable to provide an update on what the administration was doing to fix it.
Jean-Pierre paused awkwardly when a reporter asked her about the crisis.
“Yeah, let me see if I have anything new for you on that because I think it’s been a couple of days since I was asked that question,” she said.
Jean-Pierre awkwardly flipped through her briefing binder for several seconds before ultimately giving up.
“I don’t have anything new,” she finally replied. “I know we made some announcements last week, I just don’t have them in front of me.”
She urged the reporter who asked the question to talk to her after the briefing for any updates. “We’ll talk through the things we’ve been able to do and the most recent activities that we’ve done,” she said.
The reporter asked Jean-Pierre if President Joe Biden had confidence in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ability to handle the crisis and also keep baby formula safe
“If you’re asking me if the president has confidence in the FDA, he does,” she replied.
The Biden administration has been woefully unprepared to handle the crisis, despite formula production CEOs acknowledging they knew in advance that there would be a crisis after the FDA shut down an Abbott Nutrition plant in February.
Behind the scenes, Biden has expressed anger and frustration that his staff did not inform him of the baby formula shortage, which has only added to the impression he is not in control of his own administration.
Earlier this month Biden admitted he did not realize the seriousness of the formula shortage crisis until about a month ago.
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