White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre canceled her scheduled Wednesday (June 28) appearance on The View today at the last minute — but why?
A statement shared with Decider from a White House official this afternoon states that Jean-Pierre canceled her appearance at the eleventh hour due to to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. “Out of respect for striking writers, we pulled down our scheduled appearance on The View,” the statement reads. “President Biden and his entire administration sincerely hope that the writers’ strike gets resolved – and writers are given the fair deal they deserve – as soon as possible.”
The show’s Tuesday evening promotion stated that Jean-Pierre was set to join the co-hosts today during the Hot Topics segment, where the ladies discuss the latest headlines. The tweet, which originated from @TheView and was subsequently retweeted by both the White House’s officially verified @PressSec account and Jean-Pierre’s personal handle, has since been deleted.
As recently as 1:12 a.m. this morning, Jean-Pierre was still promoting her upcoming appearance on her personal Twitter account (screengrab via the Wayback Machine below). Sometime between then and when The View began, the tweet was deleted.
No one on the show made verbal mention of Karine Jean-Pierre’s cancellation this morning during the broadcast, but CBS News White House Correspondent Ed O’Keefe tweeted this afternoon that the White House canceled Jean-Pierre’s appearance “last night” after learning The View employs members of WGA East, which has been on strike since May 2, 2023 — almost two full months at this point. (Sincere question: How did the White House only just now realize this?)
In Jean-Pierre’s defense, the unscripted talk show has discussed the writers strike before with host Whoopi Goldberg regularly voicing her support for their efforts. And just last week, Dermont Mulroney symbolically walked off the show mid-segment to show his support for the ongoing strike, a dramatic move which the co-hosts reportedly took in stride.
That said, we couldn’t help but notice that Jean-Pierre’s last minute cancellation occurred just two days after the co-hosts debated Hunter Biden’s controversial presence at last week’s White House State Dinner. The President’s son recently pled guilty to two misdemeanor offenses related to his taxes and was charged with a felony firearm offense.
While hosts Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin expressed on Monday (June 26) that they felt Hunter Biden “should have sat this one out,” Ana Navarro defended the president and his son, pointing out that Hunter was President Biden’s last surviving child.
“Joe Biden has never and will never give up on his son Hunter, and will never treat him lesser than,” she said.
Griffin pointed out that having him present at the dinner could be “bad” optics for the president, who is currently campaigning for the 2024 presidency.
“This is something that I think a lot of Americans look at and they’re like, ‘They’re the elites, putting on their tuxes, going to dinners. If I was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors, I would not be at a state dinner with the most powerful people on the planet,’” she said.
If Jean-Pierre had appeared on The View this morning as planned, you can certainly bet that the conservative firebrand Alyssa Farah Griffin would have asked her about the Hunter Biden situation — the guilty plea, the invitation to the White House State Dinner, something — as the White House press corps did last Friday, the morning after the soirée. When asked to explain President Biden’s thought process behind inviting Hunter to the State Dinner at that time, Jean-Pierre tersely replied, “I’m not going to get into a personal family discussion. As you know, Hunter is his son. I’m just not going to get into it.”
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
