White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied that president Joe Biden was laughing at fentanyl victims whose mother demanded an apology.
Rebecca Kiessling told The Independent’s Bevan Hurley that it was “disgusting” of the president to laugh after Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia falsely blamed him for her sons’ fatal opioid overdose.
On Tuesday, the Georgia Republican falsely claimed that the Biden administration was responsible for the fentanyl deaths of the two young men who actually died during the Trump administration.
Ms Jean-Pierre defended the president’s chuckle and said: “When it comes to this president, I believe the American people knows who he is. They have watched him go through grief.
“He expressed sympathy for her last night. And his heart goes out to any person, any person who has to go through that type of trauma, that type of hurt.
“His words are being mischaracterised by someone who is regularly discredited for things that she says that are really conspiracy theories, and those lies are being parented by a certain network,” she said.
Ms Kiessling testified to the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday about how her two sons – 20-year-old Caleb and 18-year-old Kyler – had died on 29 July 2020 as a result of fentanyl poisoning. She said that her sons mistakenly believed the pills they were taking were safer pain pills.
The president made light of the false accusation by Ms Greene in comments to House Democrats at an event in Baltimore on Wednesday night.
“I’ve read she was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing: that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” the president said, before letting out a chuckle.
“I think it shows his heart. He was speaking to a room full of Democrats, he figures he’s amongst friends, he can yuk it up. What kind of a person talks like that?” said Ms Kiessling, who is a Michigan-based pro-life activist.
She added: “People have been saying horrible things that my sons killed themselves to get away from me.
“That was bad enough as it is. And now the president mocks the death of my sons, just because some Congresswoman misspoke.”
