Biden supposedly forgets Walorski’s death at White House conference

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Joe Biden sought out a deceased congresswoman during his remarks at a hunger conference Wednesday.

Indiana Congresswoman Jackie Walorski died in an August car crash. Biden said in his remarks: “Representative - Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I think she wasn’t going to be here - to help make this a reality.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced repeated questioning during Wednesday’s White House press briefing about Biden’s flub, saying more than a dozen times that Walorski was “top of mind” for the president. Biden plans to meet with the congresswoman’s family at an event Friday, when he signs a bill renaming a Veterans Affairs clinic in Indiana after her.

She declined to say Biden had erred, nor did she issue an apology to the late lawmaker’s family.

“My answer is certainly not going to change,” she told reporters. “All of you may have views on how I’m answering it, but I’m answering the question to the way that he saw it and to the way that we see it.”