Jen Psaki Rolls Over Peter Doocy For Asking Stupid Questions

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At a Monday White House press conference, Biden administration press secretary Jen Psaki demolished Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy over some of his familiarly ridiculous lines of questioning. Doocy asked Psaki about issues ranging from the economy to crime rates. On the economy, the Fox journalist inquired about the president’s take on sinking values in the stock market, which led Psaki to note that there’s more to the overall health of the economy than how the stock market is doing on any given day.

Doocy also asked, regarding a fight over wearing face masks in Virginia schools, whether Biden believes that school board members or parents know what’s best for students — something that seems clearly designed to (hopefully, on Doocy’s part) get an easily lambasted response from the press secretary. Psaki refused to participate in Doocy’s game of cat-and-mouse, saying that Biden “believes that public health officials have the best guidance on what we can all do to protect ourselves, including teachers, administrators, and students.” Republicans have frequently sought to cast themselves as on the side of “parents” (as though they’re a monolithic entity) in contrast to Democrats, who are supposedly on the side of, well, not parents — or so the GOP talking point goes.

Doocy followed up Psaki’s repeated references to public health guidelines by asking:

‘Just so that it’s crystal clear for anybody watching, you guys think that, ultimately, in this conflict between school board members and parents, the school board members should have more of a say – ‘

Psaki cut in, adeptly pointing out: “That’s actually not what I said. I think everybody should abide by public health guidelines — not just to keep their own kids safe, but to keep their school communities safe, whether it’s teachers, classmates, administrators, or others in schools.”

Subsequently, Doocy got to his questioning about crime rates, to which Psaki replied, in part:

‘I think we should be responsible in how we’re reporting to the public what the reasons are for the surge in crime. Gun violence is a huge reason for the surge in crime. Underfunding of some police departments and their need for additional resources — something the president has advocated for [appropriately dealing with], consistently through the course of his career — that’s something we know we need to take action on.’

In other words, the notion that Biden is somehow abandoning Americans to violence is just not reflected by the facts. It’s worth noting — since political arguments are what Doocy appears most interested in falling back on — that Republicans can hardly credibly describe themselves as the pro-police side of the aisle as long as they let Trump get away with excusing the savage violence against police that was perpetrated last year at the Capitol by his supporters. Watch Psaki’s comments below: