Another day, another question during a White House press briefing trying to confirm whether U.S. President Joe Biden indeed invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
“So far, you guys have been unwilling to say exactly where President Biden invited the Israeli prime minister to here in the U.S.,” Jeremy Diamond, CNN’s White House correspondent, said. “Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that President Biden, in a phone call, invited him to the White House for this visit later this year. Can you confirm that?”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, demurred again.
“What I can say is they both agreed to meet in the United States later this year. Both teams are working through what that’s going to look like, the timing. I don’t have anything else to share beyond that—beyond—what I, we, have said last week and continue to say after that conversation is that they both agreed to meet in the United States later this year,” Jean-Pierre said, per a White House transcript.
Diamond persisted. “So the president did not invite Netanyahu specifically to the White House?”
“I just want to be very clear: It was a conversation that they both agreed that it would be in the United States,” Jean-Pierre said. “Don’t have anything further. Both teams are indeed talking and going—and working—working through—,” Jean-Pierre said.
“What I can say is the United States, that’s what they both agreed on. And both teams are having that conversation on what that would look like—on the details of that,” she added.
