White House press sec defends Biden's laugh while speaking about a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl

On Thursday White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Joe Biden and said "the American people knows who he is fundamentally" after he laughed while commenting on a mother who lost two of her sons to the fentanyl crisis.

Fox News reports that on Wednesday, Rebecca Kiessling testified before Congress about her sons who died in 2020 from fentanyl and later Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said they died during Biden's tenure. Speaking of the congresswoman, Biden said, "She's very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is that the fentanyl they took came during the last administration." And then the president audibly laughed.

Kiessling responded to Biden's video and said, "I'm shocked to see the video today, as President Biden talked about a congresswoman who misspoke when she said that my children's deaths are the cause of President Biden's policy failure."

She later added, "This is how you speak about the death of my sons? Because a congresswoman misspoke? You mock the loss of my sons? How dare you. What is the matter with you?"

The mother later noted that there has been a 22 percent increase in fentanyl deaths during Biden's administration.

"This is unacceptable, and our president needs to apologize to me, and he needs to be held accountable," Kiessling said.

During the press conference, Jean-Pierre was asked if the president had any comment on the request for apology or if "he regretted how that came out." After she said she wanted to "be careful" talking about the mother who lost her sons, she said, "When it comes to this President, I believe the American people knows who he is fundamentally because he's been around for some time, and they have watched him go through grief. They have watched him deal with really personal loss. And so this is a president that understands that.

"He expressed sympathy for her last night. And his heart goes out to any person, any person who has to go through that type of trauma, that type of hurt," she added.

Jean-Pierre then said Biden's words were being "mischaracterized by someone who is regularly discredited for things that she says that are really conspiracy theories, and those lies are being parroted by certain network and and, you know, it and you know, I'll just leave it there."

On Twitter, the Georgia congresswoman tweeted video of Kiessling and wrote "Listen to this mother, who lost two children to fentanyl poisoning, tell the truth about both of her son’s murders because of the Biden administrations refusal to secure our border and stop the Cartel’s from murdering Americans everyday by Chinese fentanyl."