The White House says Biden didn't see Will Smith slap Chris Rock live at the Oscars and has no 'official comment' on the altercation

• President Joe Biden did not watch the Academy Awards on Sunday night, according to the White House.
• WH Communications Director Kate Bedingfield was asked about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.

Filling in for a pair of colleagues sidelined with COVID-19, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield had to field a question about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the face at the Oscars during Tuesday's press briefing.

Simon Ateba of Today News Africa asked whether the White House condemned Smith physically striking Rock after the comedian made a joke about the hair loss of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who lives with alopecia.

"So, I don't have any official comment from the White House on the altercation," Bedingfield said.

She added that President Joe Biden did not watch the Academy Awards on Sunday night.

Before asking about the Oscars, Ateba asked about US refugee policy and whether the Biden administration would be open to accepting Ethopian refugees — who have been fleeing ever since an armed conflict broke out in November 2020 — in the same way Ukrainians would be received.

A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by CNN tells officers to accept Ukrainians seeking asylum on a "case-by-case basis," despite the Biden administration maintaining a Trump-era pandemic policy that prevents foreign nationals from claiming asylum the way they normally would under international law.

Bedingfield initially appeared to move on from Ateba's Ethopia question, which was grouped together with his Oscars one, but she returned to say she doesn't have "any specifics" to announce, and that the US accepting 100,000 Ukrainians would not halt other diplomatic work.