White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday took Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to task for joking that “little elf” Dr. Anthony Fauci should be thrown across the Potomac River.
Jean-Pierre did not see the humor in the crack — leveled by a potential challenger of her boss in 2024 — saying at her regular press briefing that DeSantis advocated a “physical assault” on President Biden’s chief medical adviser.
“Just last week, you had Gov. Ron DeSantis [who] suggested that Dr. Fauci should be physically assaulted,” Jean-Pierre maintained while listing examples of a “dangerous trend” of Republicans allegedly advocating violence, a recurring theme in her press briefings recently and coming on the heels of comments from Biden last week likening Trump support to “semi-fascism.”