At the end of his press conference Monday, Joe Biden stopped his staff from clearing reporters from the room in order to take one last question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Biden said, pointing at Doocy. “I know he always asks me tough questions, and he always has an edge to them, but I like him anyway. So go ahead and ask the question.”
This is an … interesting take on Doocy. Obviously, Biden can have whatever opinion he wants but I think a lot of people would argue that his questions are not tough, they’re obstinate, and not worth taking at all, let alone making extra time for.
Here’s a sampling of the kinds of things Doocy has said and asked of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki in the last week since Biden took office:
—He implied that Biden was hypocritical for calling Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban and his COVID-19-related travel bans “xenophobic” but then implementing new travel restrictions himself. This ignores the fact that Trump announced a travel ban exclusive to China (when other countries were being hit by the virus just as hard) in the same tweet where he once again called the virus the “Chinese flu.” He later set up a travel ban for Europe but not the U.K. for unexplained reasons, despite spiking positive cases in the U.K. at the time. So yes, all that sounds pretty xenophobic.
—He asked why Joe Biden didn’t wear a mask during his address from the Lincoln Memorial during the virtual inauguration celebration after signing a mandate requiring masks to be worn on federal property. Which is structured to sound like a fair inquiry but is obviously really just a gotcha question that he has to already know the answer to.
Psaki already seemed pretty exhausted by Doocy on day one. Here’s how she responded:
“I think, Steve”—which is the name of Peter’s more famous Fox News host father—”he was celebrating an evening of a historic day in our country. And certainly he signed the mask mandate because it’s a way to send a message to the American public about the importance of wearing masks, how it can save tens of thousands of lives.
“We take a number of COVID precautions, as you know here, in terms of testing, social distancing, mask-wearing ourselves, as we do every single day. But I don’t know that I have more for you on it than that.”
—Doocy asked Psaki, “If President Biden wants the theme of his presidency to be unifying the country, does he think that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should drop a potentially divisive senate impeachment trial?”
Psaki said that Biden “believes in the Senate and their ability to multitask and get the work and business of the American people done at the same time while they are proceeding with an impeachment trial.”
None of those are “tough” questions. They’re bad faith attempts to shape a narrative rather than ascertain facts. And I know shaping false narratives has been the job of the press secretary for the last four years, but we’re not doing that anymore. Doocy needs to catch up.
Anyway, when Biden decided to give him extra time at the Monday press conference, Doocy chose to ask Biden about his vaccine rollout.
“Now that you’re President and you’re saying, ‘There is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months,’ what happened to two months ago when you were talking declaratively about ‘I’m going to shut down the virus’?”
Biden replied that he does plan to “shut down” the virus but—as anyone could easily surmise—”I never said I’d do it in two months.”
Where was Doocy when Donald Trump refused to take substantive action on the pandemic for a year and if he thought it was possible to turn this ship around in just a few months, then why isn’t he angry with Trump for never doing that? It’s one thing to ask what Biden thinks the trajectory of the pandemic will be but it’s very weird to act as if he’s caught Biden in some sort of lie or exaggeration.
It’s always strange when Fox News personalities bring the memes mocking them to life.
Hannity tonight pic.twitter.com/uiYdRzuf0S
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 20, 2021
(via Mediaite, image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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