ABC's Jake Tapper Presses White House on Hoffa 'SOB' Remarks

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite reports on a testy exchange between ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney at Tuesday's White House briefing. Tapper took his time to press Carney on the WH's response (or lack thereof) to heated comments made by Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. prior to President Obama's Labor Day speech in Detroit:

Hoffa’s remarks are the toast of a bone-dry post-Labor Day news cycle, so Carney had to expect questions about it. The briefing was pushed back an hour-and-a-half, time likely spent fine-tuning for an already important messaging day.

The first reporter to ask about Hoffa’s remarks was ABC’s Jake Tapper, who pressed Carney on the President’s January call for civility, and in a heated exchange, tried to get Carney to set a standard for surrogate quote-ownership for the 2012 campaign.

Tapper began by reading President Obama’s January quote, then asked, “Did he mean that?”

On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, anchor Gretchen Carlson tried gamely to get DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to address to vitriol at the Obama Labor Day event without much success.