“I personally believe it wasn’t a hot mic. He knew what he was doing, he knew he was on,” CNN’s Brian Stelter suggested on Tuesday “And then he had the manners to call later and try to mend fences. But it is still interesting to get inside the mind of the president.”

Plenty of people disagree with that view.

Amber E. Boydstun, a professor of political science at the University of California Davis, said she finds it hard to believe that Biden’s outburst at Doocy was premeditated or strategic.

“It just doesn’t seem in his ethos or in any kind of longer-term best interest of the White House for him to use that specific expletive,” Boydstun said. “That just doesn’t track.”