‘The American Flag Is Sacred’: WH Reacts After Reports Of Upside-Down Flag At Justice Alito’s House

4 months ago

During a White House press briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Justice Samuel Alito’s house displaying an upside-down American flag after January 6.

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00:00Great. Thank you. Does the president, who is a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,

00:05agree with the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Justice Alito should

00:10refuse himself from 20 cases involving a 2020 election or January 6th because of the reporting

00:17of the upside-down flag blown outside of his house? So obviously we've seen the reporting,

00:22and I don't want to comment on the specific report, on that reporting. What I can say more

00:28broadly is that the president believes that the American flag is sacred. You've heard him say that

00:35and is owed proper respect and honor of the brave men and women who have defended our country for

00:42generations, and we should be respecting that flag. We should be making sure that it is respected in

00:48that way. It is sacred. As for anything else, the conduct or recusing himself, that is something for

00:56the court to decide. I just don't have anything else to add and just want to be very clear. The

01:01American flag is sacred. That is something that the president believes in, and you've heard me say

01:05this before at this podium many times. Can you give us a sense of how the president will use

01:11his time at Morehouse on Sunday? Will there be any news in the speech? Will it be more of a lofty

01:18go forth and prosper kind of speech? Can you give us a sense of, without getting specific because

01:24I know you don't want to get ahead of the president. I don't want to get ahead of the president. No.

01:28So look, he takes these commencement addresses incredibly seriously. He understands the

01:34importance of him being the president and obviously the commander-in-chief when he

01:40speaks to the West Point graduates later this month. But he sees this as an opportunity to lift

01:45up and to give important message to our future leaders. I mean, these Morehouse men who are

01:51graduating will be our future leaders. As you heard from Mayor Benjamin when he was standing

01:56here behind this lectern, he talked about what it's like to be part of that HBCU,

02:04if you can imagine, collective, and how important it is and how respected that is.

02:09And so look, he'll have, I think, some important message to share for these future leaders. He'll

02:14have themes in his remarks, in his commencement remarks that he'll share with them. He's been

02:20working on these remarks for the past couple days, I can assure you, with his senior advisors. He's

02:25taking this incredibly seriously and he understands, as the president tends to do, meet the moment,

02:30the moment that we're in. I won't get beyond that, but I would say stay tuned. I think it will be

02:37a moving commencement address. I think it will meet the moment and I think you will hear

02:45directly from the president on how he sees, obviously, the future of this country and also

02:50the community that they represent. But again, as you just stated, I'm not going to get ahead of

02:54the president. Go ahead, Grisha. Thanks, Doreen. I'm going to try again. On Morehouse? Not on Morehouse,

03:01on the flag. Okay. So given the flag incident, does President Biden believe that Justice Alito

03:09can rule with impartiality for all the cases involving generations? So look, and this is

03:17something that I have spoken to the president about and basically what I laid out is how he

03:21feels, is that the American flag is sacred and we should be respecting that flag. I do not want to

03:28get into the business of the specific actions that Supreme Court justices, if they should

03:36recuse themselves or not, on a court. That is something for the court more broadly. They have to

03:42make that decision. That is something that we're not going to step into. We're not going to comment

03:46from here. But more broadly, we can say from the reportings that we have seen that we believe

03:52that the American flag should be respected. It should be, this is a, if you think about the brave

03:57men and women who have sacrificed, given their lives to protect our nation, it is, we just,

04:04that is something that we will always say and be really, really clear about. I cannot speak to

04:10if he should recuse himself, how he should move forward in the court. That is for the court to

04:14decide. Okay, on another topic, did President Biden... Wow, you just seem so disappointed.

04:19It's like, oh, Kareem, we're going to move on.

‘The American Flag Is Sacred’: WH Reacts After Reports Of Upside-Down Flag At Justice Alito’s House

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