President Joe Biden was caught on a still-hot microphone at the end of a White House meeting Monday calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch.”
But he later called to apologise, saying, “It’s nothing personal, pal,” according to Doocy.
Reporters were beginning to file out of the room following a meeting between Biden and administration officials on how to lower consumer prices.
Doocy shouted out to ask the president if he thought inflation would be a “political liability ahead of the midterms.”
Biden, still in front of the microphone, can be heard on a C-SPAN video clip muttering his response: “That’s a great asset, more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper later suggested the slam was intentionally public because Biden had to know his comment would be picked up by the microphone.
Doocy said on Special Report that he couldn’t hear Biden’s comment at the time. “He didn’t want to take any questions off-topic,” Doocy noted. “Now we’ll just wait to see if the White House has to bleep that out.”
The reporter later recounted on Fox News’ Sean Hannity Show that Biden had called him to apologise within an hour of his remark.
“He said, ‘It’s nothing personal, pal,’” Doocy recounted. “We went back and forth, and we were talking about just kind of moving forward.”
Doocy added: “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.”
The interaction evoked former President Donald Trump’s contentious relationship with the press, particularly with CNN’s Jim Acosta.
Doocy has repeatedly clashed with White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
The White House has yet to issue a statement.
Twitter followers went bonkers.