Radio host says 'there's no question' Karine Jean-Pierre hung up on him in middle of interview
A local North Carolina radio host responded to claims from the White House that press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not hang up on him during an interview.
"There's no question in my mind [that] she hung up," 99.3 WBT Charlotte News Director Mark Garrison said on "America's Newsroom" Thursday.
"Look, I've done lots of these kinds of interviews before where people are on a tight schedule," he said, "and when you begin to run out of time, they simply say, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.'"
"There was none of that," Garrison added.
In a previous comment to Fox News Digital, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said, "As she often does when the President travels, Karine had multiple back-to-back interviews with radio stations who were each offered 7 minutes. Once the agreed-upon time was over, she called into the next interview so everyone could get their full time."
At one point in his original interview with Jean-Pierre on Tuesday, Garrison questioned whether Biden has "dementia," stating that "a number of people" he told about the interview requested that he ask her that question.
Jean-Pierre called the question "incredibly offensive" and accused Garrison of "taking us down this rabbit hole."
After defending Biden’s record, she said, "And so I’m not even going to truly, truly, really, you know, take, take the premise of your question. I think it is incredibly insulting. And, and so we can, you know, we can move on to the next question."
Following a discussion about the economy, Jean-Pierre ended the call, saying, "And, and with that, thank you so much, Mark. Have an amazing, amazing day."
Garrison later said that the White House initially reached out to him for the interview.
"What surprised me was that she said she was so offended by the question," Garrison said Thursday. "The fact that it almost caught her by surprise, I was stunned by that really."
When asked about Biden's chances in North Carolina, Garrison said that Trump is consistently polling ahead of Biden.
"At this point, I think Trump can pull it out," he said.
Fox News' Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.