Two days after he faced shameless gaslighting from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over which party supported defunding the police, Fox News’s Peter Doocy was back at it during Wednesday’s briefing and pressed Psaki on her false claims that the GOP (and not Democrats) have defunded the police.
Doocy began with this carefully crafted question: “[Y]ou mentioned at the last briefing that you think Republicans wanted to defund the police because they did not support the American Rescue Plan. Which Republican ever said they did not like the American Rescue Plan because they wanted to defund the police?”
Psaki refused to change her tune and instead reiterated her reliance on blind partisanship and low-information voters by arguing that Democrats oppose defunding the police because President Biden “ran and won the most votes of any candidate in history on a plan of booster for law enforcement after Republicans spent decades trying to cut the cops program.”
She added that there shouldn’t be any further debate because it’s “a simple statement of fact” that the GOP has “also stood in the way of crucial funding needing to prevent the laying off of police officers as crime increased.”
Earth to Jen: What do cities such as Austin, Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, and Seattle all have in common? Not only are they run by Democrats, but those Democrats have voted to defund their police departments.
Nonetheless, Psaki has possessed zero shame as she’s lied without consequence because, other than Doocy (and likely one or two others), not one reporter in the Briefing Room cared.
Doocy chose to continue focusing on the other important aspect, which was the rhetoric and policies of House Democrats.
When presented with these inconvenient facts, Psaki tried to turn the tables on Doocy and insist that “actions are more important than words.” Doocy kept pressing, but Psaki unsurprisingly stuck to talking points before moving to another reporter (click “expand”):
DOOCY: I understand what you’re saying there. However, there are lots of examples of Democrats explicitly saying they want to defund the police. We’ve got Congresswoman Cori Bush, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar. Are there any examples of Republican members of congress saying they want to defund the police?
PSAKI: I think most people would argue that actions are more important than words. Wouldn’t you say?
DOOCY: Well, to that point — to your point there, at the time of the vote on the American Rescue Plan, you had Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell — he said just didn't like it because he thought it was a classic example of big government, democratic overreach in the name of COVID. And then Kevin McCarthy said he thought Democrats were using coronavirus an excuse to justify funding pet projects.
PSAKI: Well —
DOOCY: Where is the “we’re going to vote —
PSAKI: — here the —
DOOCY: — against this because we want to —
PSAKI: — here — here —
DOOCY: — defund the police?”
PSAKI: I think actions speak louder than words, Peter. So, if you oppose funding for the cops program, something that was dramatically cut by the prior administration, and many Republicans supported and then you vote against a bill that has funding for the cops program, we can let other people evaluate what that means. Doesn’t require them to speak to it or to shout it out. Their actions speak for themselves.
If we were to go down that road, it wouldn’t look good for Psaki and the spin she’s been offering. When over a dozen major U.S. cities have already gone through with slashing police budgets and elected progressives on Capitol Hill have talked about eradicating law enforcement, there’s little ground (if any) to stand on.
And while Doocy was it, he did what his colleagues refused to do in also asking about the latest anti-Semitic comments from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Referring to Omar’s Tuesday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Doocy wondered: “What does the White House think about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar saying he she does not regret comparing Israel to Hamas and the Taliban?”
Psaki tried to have her cake and eat it too, insisting that while “any attempt to draw an equivalency between the United States and our close ally Israel with a terror group like Hamas or the Taliban is false and unacceptable,” Omar supposedly said she didn’t mean to make the comparison.
Later in the briefing, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe brought up the horribly-botched vote counting in the New York City mayoral race coming at the “end of” a month that the White House had dubbed a “month of action on voting rights.” Unsurprisingly, Psaki ducked it (click “expand”):
O’KEEFE: And this is the end of June which was supposed to be the month of action on voting rights. And it ends with an interesting situation in New York City as they try to now retabulate votes and they won’t give us the final results for a few more days. Does this White House, does the administration more broadly have any concern with what is going on in New York given the fact that the President had said earlier this month in a statement that “the work ahead of us is to make voting accessible to all American voters and to make sure every vote is counted through a free, fair, and transparent process.”
PSAKI: That continues to be his hope and his commitment and his desire, but I don't have any assessment from the White House on the New York vote counting reporting, I'll call it.
To see the relevant briefing transcript from June 30, click “expand.”
White House Press Briefing
June 30, 2021
1:49 p.m. EasternPETER DOOCY: What does the white house think about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar saying he she does not regret comparing Israel to Hamas and the Taliban?
JEN PSAKI: Well, any attempt to draw an equivalency between the United States and our close ally Israel with a terror group like Hamas or the Taliban is false and unacceptable. Representative Omar has said that was not the intent of her comments. But those are not comments we’ve made from here.
DOOCY: And on another subject, you mentioned at the last briefing that you think Republicans wanted to defund the police because they did not support the American Rescue Plan. Which Republican ever said they did not like the American Rescue Plan because they wanted to defund the police?
PSAKI: Well, first let me just note that the President ran and won the most votes of any candidate in history on a plan of booster for law enforcement after Republicans spent decades trying to cut the cops program. There’s a record of that. That doesn't require anyone having new comments. And then also stood in the way of crucial funding needing to prevent the laying off of police officers as crime increased. That's a simple statement of fact.
DOOCY: I understand what you’re saying there. However, there are lots of examples of Democrats explicitly saying they want to defund the police. We’ve got Congresswoman Cori Bush, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar. Are there any examples of Republican members of congress saying they want to defund the police?
PSAKI: I think most people would argue that actions are more important than words. Wouldn’t you say?
DOOCY: Well, to that point — to your point there, at the time of the vote on the American Rescue Plan, you had Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell — he said just didn't like it because he thought it was a classic example of big government, democratic overreach in the name of COVID. And then Kevin McCarthy said he thought Democrats were using coronavirus an excuse to justify funding pet projects.
PSAKI: Well —
DOOCY: Where is the “we’re going to vote —
PSAKI: — here the —
DOOCY: — against this because we want to —
PSAKI: — here — here —
DOOCY: — defund the police?”
PSAKI: — again, I think actions speak louder than words, Peter. So, if you oppose funding for the cops program, something that was dramatically cut by the prior administration, and many Republicans supported and then you vote against a bill that has funding for the cops program, we can let other people evaluate what that means. Doesn’t require them to speak to it or to shout it out. Their actions speak for themselves.
(....)
1:56 p.m. Eastern
ED O’KEEFE: And this is the end of June which was supposed to be the month of action on voting rights. And it ends with an interesting situation in New York City as they try to now retabulate votes and they won’t give us the final results for a few more days. Does this White House, does the administration more broadly have any concern with what is going on in New York given the fact that the President had said earlier this month in a statement that “the work ahead of us is to make voting accessible to all American voters and to make sure every vote is counted through a free, fair, and transparent process.”
PSAKI: That continues to be his hope and his commitment and his desire, but I don't have any assessment from the White House on the New York vote counting reporting, I'll call it.
