White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre admitted on Tuesday that she had been mistaken when she stated neurologist Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease specialist, had not examined President Joe Biden in January.
There has been speculation by some in the medical community, following Biden’s disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump last month, that he suffers from Parkinson’s.
The New York Post reported over the weekend that based on the White House visitor logs Cannard had come to the White House on Jan. 17 and met with Biden’s presidential physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.
O’Connor released a letter Monday night, stating that Cannard had examined Biden during each of his annual physicals, the results of the most recent of which were made public in late February.
The letter did not address why Cannard met with O’Connor on Jan. 17.
At the Tuesday White House news briefing, Associated Press reporter Seung Min Kim asked Jean-Pierre about the letter, noting it “didn’t seem to explicitly describe the nature of Dr. Cannard’s meeting with Dr. O’Connor.”
“So can you say whether that one meeting was related to care for the president himself?” she asked.
“I can say that it was not,” Jean-Pierre answered.
YESTERDAY: Karine Jean-Pierre denies the January meeting between Biden’s physician and a renown Parkinson’s expert was related to Biden’s care.
(ALSO YESTERDAY: KJP issues a late night correction admitting it was, in fact, related to Biden’s health.)pic.twitter.com/fjS8mN28PZ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 10, 2024
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However, the press secretary reached back out to Kim later Tuesday evening, saying her answer was incorrect.
“Because the date was not mentioned in the question, I want to be clear that the Jan. 17 meeting between Dr. O’Connor and Dr. Cannard was for the president’s physical,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement to the AP.
“It was one of the three times the president has seen Dr. Cannard, each time for his physical. The findings from each exam have been released to the public.”
During a Monday news briefing, Jean-Pierre read from Biden’s February health summary saying, “An extremely detailed neurological exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis.”
Jean-Pierre got into a tense exchange during that briefing with CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe over the nature of Cannard’s eight visits to the White House grounds from August through March.
She responded to the line of questioning, saying that due to privacy reasons she could not confirm if Cannard had visited or who he had seen, suggesting some patients could include military personnel, which raised security issues.
Asked specifically about Biden, Jean-Pierre offered the same response, prompting O’Keefe to say, “That’s a very basic direct question.”
“That much you should be able to answer by this point,” he asserted.
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“We cannot share names of specialists, broadly,” Jean-Pierre answered.
O’Keefe noted Cannard’s name is right in the visitor logs for anyone to see and continued to push the press secretary for answers.
“Hold on a second. There’s no reason to go back and forth with me in this aggressive way,” Jean-Pierre replied.
“Well, we’re a little miffed around here about how information has been shared with the press corps about [Biden],” O’Keefe fired back.
