A quote from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has circulated on the Internet, expressing concern and threatening sanctions against countries that refuse to pay in dollars. We decided to check if she said anything like that.

Completely gone viral on the Internet quote sounds like this: “We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies for mutual settlements. This is a violation of the rights of our citizens who count on a stable dollar exchange rate on the world market. America will not allow other countries to dictate their terms to it in mutual trade. We want to warn that violation of the rights of ordinary Americans will not remain without consequences for these countries.” This statement, attributed to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, or individual phrases from it reposted many bloggers on various platforms (eg LiveJournal And "Zene"). Posted even her some not the most authoritative news resources. It was published in many popular Telegram channels: “Sanya in Florida"(292,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ostashko! Important"(110,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(94,000), "Big Shock Theory"(21,000), etc. Posts with this quote receive hundreds of likes and reposts on social networks (“VKontakte", Twitter, Facebook).

The quote attributed to Karine Jean-Pierre is not in any even somewhat authoritative media - neither Russian nor foreign. It is not on the official website of the White House, where everything is published statements, and also transcripts briefings. On her Twitter accounts - official And personal — also nothing is said about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies.

Earliest publication, which “Verified” managed to find, was made on March 30, 2023 in the Telegram channel “but my Yandex wallet.” It also contains a photo of Jean-Pierre, which was later used as an illustration in many posts with this quote. This also indirectly indicates that it was the publication in the channel “here is my Yandex wallet” that was the first. In other versions of publication accompanies photo collage, in which Jean-Pierre stands surrounded by the characters from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which takes place in a mental hospital. However, these publications appeared later than in the specified Telegram channel.

The channel's description states that it specializes in parodies and "satire of political reality." However, not all of its readers have probably seen this description, since the channel has many times become the primary source of unreliable information, spread in all seriousness by Internet users and sometimes the media. So, earlier “Verified” already analyzed stories that Polish Prime Minister proposed Zelensky to transfer the western territories of Ukraine to Poland, which Ukrainian writer wanted to oblige fellow citizens who support Russia to wear a red star on their clothes or something singer Monetochka gave the Russians an ultimatum: “Either me or Putin.” All of them turned out to be completely fictitious.

As far as we know, this is the first time that news from this Telegram channel has spread outside the Russian-language segment of the Internet. Thus, Jean-Pierre's pseudo-quote was widely circulated on Twitter: it can be found on English, Spanish And Arabic languages. This "going international" noted and the channel owners themselves, also indirectly confirming that they were the real authors of this quote.

Thus, Karine Jean-Pierre never called the transition of countries to mutual settlements in national currencies a violation of the rights of American citizens to a stable dollar exchange rate and did not threaten them with sanctions for this. The news initially appeared in a Telegram channel specializing in satirical news, and from there it spread across both Russian-language and foreign blogs and social networks.

Cover photo: Oleg Semenchenko