White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared on The View Tuesday to share her thoughts about President Joe Biden ending his re-election campaign, and during the show’s segment, in which she was joined by Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and the rest, Jean-Pierre made sure to to slam J.D. Vance’s comments that Biden should resign from office as “ridiculous.”
Vance recently took to Twitter/X to call for Biden to step down altogether after he announced that he won’t be seeking a second term after all. “Everyone calling on Joe Biden to *stop running* without also calling on him to resign the presidency is engaged in an absurd level of cynicism,” Vance wrote on X. He added, “If you can’t run, you can’t serve. He should resign now.”
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Jean-Pierre her thoughts on Vance’s comments. “I think that’s ridiculous, seriously,” she said. “What I will say is the president decided to not run for re-election, that’s it, that’s all he decided on. He wants to continue to do the work—three and half years of unprecedented, historic work—and I think that shows what he’s capable of doing.”
Jean-Pierre also said that Biden’s decision was “hard for many of us [in the Biden camp],” but “we are incredibly proud of this president, we trust his leadership, we trust his judgment.” When Behar brought up the celebrities who called for Biden to sit out the election—specifically George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed—which Jean-Pierre noted, “I was tracking.”
As for how the president came to his decision this past weekend, the press secretary said his reasons were completely laid out in his statement. “There’s no spin to [his letter],” she said. “He truly believed it was the right thing to do in this moment [and that] the right thing to do for this country is to give [the nomination] to someone who is incredibly qualified.”
“He said himself that the reason he picked Kamala Harris was because he believed she was ready to lead from day one,” she added, to applause. But first, she said, there’s more for Biden to do: “We’re not done yet. Obviously, he stepped down from running and being the nominee, but he’s very much still the president.”