Biden Spox Roasts Trump Presidency At Air Force One Briefing After Trump-Related Cocaine Question

White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates roasted Donald Trump’s presidency after a reporter asked about Trump’s social media cocaine rant suggesting the blow belonged to the president or his son.

During an Air Force One briefing Thursday, Bates name-checked Trump in his opening remarks, telling reporters “Under President Biden, manufacturing plant construction has doubled, whereas under Donald Trump’s administration, it barely grew at all — by 2 percent.”

Later, Bates was asked about Trump’s social media post by Bloomberg White House correspondent Jordan Fabian, and declined to answer by citing the Hatch Act.

But with a little bit of disclamatory language, Bates pivoted to roasting Trump’s time in office compared to President Joe Biden’s, heavily implying this was the source of the angst that propelled Trump to lash out:

JORDAN FABIAN: One more. You know, President — former President Trump has made some pretty wild posts recently on social media. One of them was that the cocaine found in the White House was — had belonged to either the President or his son. Are you willing to say that that’s not the case, that they don’t belong to them?

MR. BATES: I don’t have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act.

What I will say is that I have noticed there does seem to be some increasing frustration coming from that corner in general. And I think it is probably rooted in the contrast between their substantive policy records.

As you have all covered, there is a long list of areas where this administration succeeded for the middle class where our predecessor did not. For example, infrastructure is no longer a punchline. And now the biggest infrastructure investments in 70 years are rebuilding America.

President Biden is bringing manufacturing jobs back at the fastest rate in modern history. And like I mentioned, we have doubled the construction of manufacturing facilities in just two and a half years. Whereas during the previous administration, it only grew at an anemic 2 percent.

Medicare is now negotiating lower drug costs. I’m old enough to remember when that was someone else’s campaign promise.

The economy we inherited was in freefall. We turned it around by creating more jobs in two years than any other president in four.

So it would be unsurprising if there’s a little bit of frustration on the part of people who worked in the last administration.

And, of course, this dovetails with today’s announcement from Enphase. It comes at a moment when we have crossed the threshold of $500 billion in private sector investment due to Bidenomics, which is about growing our economy by growing the middle class. There is no better way to do that than giving people good jobs coming to America, thanks to policies like the Inflation Reduction Act.

The latter portion of the response didn’t make the cut when the RNC and other Biden critics circulated part of the exchange.

Watch above via Mediaite.

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