The first lady’s press secretary on Monday called for an apology from Fox News and weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy, who over the weekend said Jill Biden had failed the country by letting her husband run for president.
Campos-Duffy also criticized President Biden’s “mental state” in commentary criticizing the exit of troops from Afghanistan and the administration’s struggles to evacuate people from that country.
“This is disgusting,” said Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden’s press secretary. “@RCamposDuffy and @FoxNews know better. They can do better and their viewers deserve better. I hope they’ll apologize to the First Lady and leave this kind of talk in the [trash] where it belongs.”
Campos-Duffy said the most “patriotic thing Jill Biden could have done was tell her husband, to love her husband, and not let him run in this mental state that he’s in.”
“I think she failed the country as well,” the weekend host said.
“When you look at what’s hurting America, when you look at this lack of leadership, and you wonder, who are the people responsible for putting someone this incompetent and frankly this, you know, mentally frail in this position?” Campos-Duffy said earlier in her commentary. “I’m sorry, as a political spouse, I can’t help but look at Jill Biden … No one knew better his state of mind than Dr. Jill Biden.”
Campos-Duffy, who joined Fox News in June as co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” is married to former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.).
President Biden’s handling of the U.S. pullout in Afghanistan has sparked bipartisan backlash and led some on the political right to question his fitness for office.
But Campos-Duffy’s criticism of Jill Biden, and her attacks on President Biden’s state of mind, stuck out from the majority of GOP criticism — particularly the remarks about the first lady.