President Joe Biden dialled Fox News reporter Peter Doocy to apologise after calling him “a stupid son of a bitch” in the East Room on Monday.
White House reporters had assembled for a photo op where the president was meeting with the competition council and some of the members of his cabinet to discuss ways to reduce prices for American families.
Mr Biden was caught on camera slamming Doocy after he asked the president: “Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?”
The president responded saying: “It’s a great asset – more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”
Doocy revealed on his colleague Sean Hannity’s show, that the president called him within “about an hour” of the heated exchange.
“It’s nothing personal, pal,” the president told Doocy.
“And we went back and forth, and we were talking about just kind of moving forward, and I made sure to tell him that I’m always gonna try to ask something different than what everybody else is asking. And he said, ‘You got to.’ And that’s a quote from the president, so I’ll keep doing it,” Doocy said.
When asked if the president apologised, Doocy said: “He cleared the air and I appreciate it.”
“We had a nice call,” he added.
Doocy had laughed off the comment when he earlier appeared on Fox News and claimed he had not even heard Mr Biden’s response because of the noise in the room.
“Yeah, no one has fact-checked him and said it’s not true,” Doocy told host Jesse Watters, who had joked he agreed with the president’s assessment.
CNN’s White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, however, told host Jake Tapper that the president was fully aware he had a microphone in front of him when he made the remark.
Doocy had earlier left the president chuckling during his first press conference of 2022, when he asked Mr Biden why was he pulling the US “so far to the left.”
Mr Biden could be heard chuckling as he listened to the question and then defended himself as a “mainstream Democrat” and “not Bernie Sanders.”
Last week, the president reportedly lashed out at another Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich for asking questions on the escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“Why are you waiting on Putin to make the first move, sir?” Heinrich asked.
“What a stupid question,” the president replied.
