"Fox & Friends" host Elisabeth Hasselbeck grilled White House press secretary Josh Earnest Wednesday morning on the "cavalier" statement of President Obama that last week's terrorist attack in Paris was just a "setback" in the war against the Islamic State, a stinging comment that put Earnest on the defensive.
Hasselbeck asked Earnest why Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have used some of the words they have used to describe both last week's deadly terror attacks in Paris and the January attack on Charlie Hebdo, which Kerry called "understandable." She said those words paint Obama and Kerry as "aloof, apathetic and quite cavalier about these lives being lost at the hand of ISIS."
"To call this just a setback seems awful, at least to the American people," she said.
"Well Elisabeth, I think what I'd ask the American people to do is to go look at the transcript of the president's remarks, where he described this situation as sickening, where he expresses profound sorrow at what exactly had occurred, and I think what I would encourage you to do is to spend just as much time focusing on the presidents actions as you do his words," Earnest replied.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.
More from Politics
