Where's Jackie? Joe Biden calls on dead congresswoman in speech

President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Photo / AP

President Joe Biden sought out deceased Rep. Jackie Walorski on Wednesday during remarks at a hunger conference, saying "Where's Jackie?" The White House press secretary later said the congresswoman had been "top of mind" for the president at the time.

Karine Jean-Pierre did not acknowledge that Biden had misspoken during his remarks at the White House conference on hunger, nutrition and health when he looked around the room for Walorski, the Indiana congresswoman who died in an August car crash.

Biden, in his remarks. praised bipartisan lawmakers who worked on addressing childhood hunger, including Rep. Jim McGovern, Sen. Mike Braun, Sen. Cory Booker and Walorski, who was seen as a leader on the issue before her death.

"Representative — Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? I think she wasn't going to be here — to help make this a reality," Biden said.

Jean-Pierre faced repeated questioning during Wednesday's White House press briefing about Biden's flub, saying more than a dozen times that Walorski was "top of mind" for the president, who plans to meet with the congresswoman's family at an event Friday when he signs a bill renaming a Veterans Affairs clinic in Indiana after her. She declined to say Biden had erred, nor did she issue an apology to the late lawmaker's family.

"My answer is certainly not going to change," she told reporters. "All of you may have views on how I'm answering it, but I'm answering the question to the way that he saw it and to the way that we see it."

A staffer for Walorski was trying to pass a flat-bed truck on a northern Indiana highway last month when the SUV they were in crashed into an oncoming car, killing Walorski and three other people, police said earlier this month.

A witness travelling behind the SUV told investigators it sped up, crossed the centreline of the two-lane highway as it neared the truck and pulled into the path of the other car when the crash happened about 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 3, according to the Elkhart County Sheriff's Office.

Airbag control module data from the SUV driven by Zachery Potts, 27, who was Walorski's district director, showed it was going 77 mph at the time of the crash on a rural stretch of Indiana 19 near the town of Wakarusa, the office said.

"All of the evidence and information gathered is consistent with someone attempting to pass another vehicle on a two-lane roadway," the office said in a statement.