Jen Psaki Hands Peter Doocy His Rear-End During WH Briefing

0
2266

At a Wednesday press conference at the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki expertly dismantled shoddy commentary from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, who’s made somewhat of a name for himself with his self-important but bizarrely ignorant questions. On Wednesday, he asked Psaki about the administration’s response to a group of Democratic members of the Texas state House who have left their home state in the middle of a special legislative session, leaving Republicans back home unable to move forward on a restrictive elections bill since they no longer have a quorum. Psaki straightforwardly outlined how “bold action” for the sake of voting rights is needed.

Asked the question — which seemed just un-serious on its face — of if she knew of any examples from Biden’s decades in the Senate when the president “just hopped on a train and left town to avoid a vote that he knew he was going to lose,” Psaki replied to Doocy as follows:

‘I think that the president’s view is that these Texas legislators were making a statement through action in opposition to efforts in their state —  to oppose restrictions on people’s fundamental rights and their rights to vote in their state. That is why they departed. The vice president met with these legislators yesterday, and the president certainly applauds their actions and their outspoken opposition to efforts to put in place restrictive measures in their state.’

Psaki also noted that the current political environment — featuring efforts by Republican leaders around the country to impose suppressive new voting restrictions — “requires bold action” and “requires bold voices to speak out against that and make sure people understand their rights.”

Watch below:

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has said that the absent Democratic lawmakers would be promptly “arrested” upon their eventual return to the state, but Abbott doesn’t actually have the power to undertake such a move. There is an allowance for absent Texas lawmakers to be detained — but that’s not the same thing as an “arrest.” Texas state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, one of the Democrats who left, drew a sharp distinction between the two on CNN. The detentions of legislators that are allowed to take place are the prerogative of the speaker of the state House, although Texas authorities don’t have jurisdiction outside of the state. In D.C., the Democrats who left Texas behind (for now) have been advocating for federal action to protect voting rights.

On Tuesday, Biden spoke in Philadelphia against the suppressive voting restrictions that have been put forward by Republicans like Texas state leaders. As the president put it, “the denial of full, and free, and fair elections is the most un-American thing that any of us can imagine. The most un-democratic, the most un-patriotic — and it’s sadly not unprecedented.”

Watch below: