White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday afternoon that Vice President Kamala Harris had lost the election because of “global headwinds” caused by the coronavirus pandemic — five years later.
Though the pandemic created the conditions under which President Joe Biden had won the 2020 election — thanks not only to public dissatisfaction with the pandemic and the coronavirus lockdowns, but also to changes in voting rules that Democrats had pushed for — Jean-Pierre said that voters were still taking out their pandemic frustrations.
“Despite all of the accomplishments that we were able to get done, there were global headwinds because of the COVID-19 pandemic. … And it had a political toll, on many incumbents, if you look at what happened in 2024 globally. And that’s part of what you saw. … There was a political toll on incumbent parties around the world here,” she said.
“What we saw two nights ago was not unusual to what we have seen from the incumbencies around the world on the global stage.”
She said that President Biden and Vice President Harris accepted “the choice that the electorate has made,” and would ensure a peaceful transfer of power. “You can’t love your country only when you win, and you can’t love your neighbor only when you agree,” she said.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
