Tuesday saw a return of The Psaki Show and, without Fox’s Peter Doocy and questions from Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann, someone had to bring the heat to Press Secretary Jen Psaki and that came thanks to the New York Post’s Steven Nelson, who brought questions about the ever-corrupt Hunter Biden and allegations that President Biden owes back taxes.
Nelson began by bringing up one of the Post’s latest pieces of excellent reporting which “said on Friday that the First Son had sold five prints of his artworks for $75,000 each and that a team of lawyers is reviewing the prospective buyers who are going to be allowed into an upcoming New York show.”
He continued by pointing out the fact that this “seems to suggest a departure from the White House-brokered agreement where the purchasers would be anonymous.”
Finally, Nelson offered up his question: “I was hoping you could say, the White House knows who purchased the five prints and whether there is indeed a departure to the arrangement, that there would be anonymity here.”
Psaki wasn’t amused by yet another Hunter question (and just six days after the last one from CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy), so she dismissed it as Nelson’s “favorite topic” before peddling the pathetic spin that Hunter’s art remains in “the purview of the gallerist” and no one else will know other than said gallerist “who purchases any” of his artwork.
Before moving on, Psaki reiterated a line about Hunter that makes it seem like he’s a kindergartner and not a 51-year-old man: “[T]he President remains proud of his son.”
Though Nelson never got around to asking about it, another Post story involved Hunter’s art deal having received a $350,000 Small Business Administration (SBA) loan during the throes of the coronavirus pandemic which, unsurprisingly, has yet to be mentioned by the major broadcast networks.
Nelson started to speak, but Psaki wanted to know whether he had any other Hunter-related questions because, if so, “we’re going to move on to some other topics” since there’s “[l]ots going on in the world.”
Nelson said he had a different topic, so Psaki allowed him to proceed with an extremely long question about the President and back taxes (click “expand”):
NELSON: Yes, so about build back better and tax policy, I'd like to ask you about proposed tax increases and proposed tighter tax enforcement. President Biden often describes raising taxes on higher incomes as a matter of fairness and enforcing current tax policy is a matter of people paying their fair share. But Republicans in Congress, led by Representative Jim Banks, are pointing to a recent Congressional Research Service report, which they say underscores that President Biden allegedly owes $500,000 in Medicare taxes that he didn't pay by allegedly improperly categorizing $13 million in income routed through s-corporations in 2017 and 2018. So, tax law expert Robert Willens, who teaches at Columbia University said in my case — “in my view, the case can easily be made” by the I.R.S. that President Biden owes back taxes under current law. So, as he campaigns for —
PSAKI: This is a very long question. I think I know what you're getting at. This has been debunked as you probably know. Also, he's released many, many years of his tax returns so people can check them out.
Nelson tried to keep going, but Psaki cut him off in favor of National Journal’s George Condon.
Later, the Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence twice tried to get Psaki to explain why the U.S. continues to suffer issues with the supply chain despite assurances the Biden administration has been working on this since they took office (click “expand”):
LAWRENCE: So he said June [was when] this supply chain disruption tax force was assembled. I'm just curious why it took so long for the President to get together the two port heads as well as all the shipping companies to figure out what's wrong with the supply chain since it's been an issue for most of the year.
PSAKI: Well, I would say that the President has — the supply chain task force has been working around the clock for months and months now to address a range of different issues that we see in the supply chain and as you know, because you cover this pretty closely, there are issues at the ports and addressing the bottlenecks at the ports, those have been on the rise recently, but it's something that he's been working on and his team has born working on there. There are also a range of different issues in the supply chain. It's not just domestically, it's globally as well. It's one of the reasons we've been, of course, it's morally right too, but such a huge contributor to the global effort to get the pandemic under control to ensure we're making sure manufacturing facilities are staying open. It’s why he's pressed so hard for the chips legislation to ensure that the semiconductor shortages something that doesn't halt production for the auto industry. So it's not just one issue in the supply chain as you well know. It's multiple issues. That's why the team has been working for several months to address it. And tomorrow's another opportunity. We've done several supply chain events to lift this up and tell the American people what we're doing to help address the bottlenecks.
LAWRENCE: But are they — are we behind the curve? Is the President behind the curve rather than trying to get in front of this issue?
PSAKI: He's been working on these issues for months. I mean, I know it's been up in front in the news in the last few weeks, but these are issues the President's been focused on since he took office and that's why he had a dedicated team both in the N.E.C. and the Department of Treasury across the inter agency to help address these issues. It's a fundamental challenge as the economy’s turning back on and one has been focused on from the first day.
In the liberal column, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor wasted 83 seconds of time kvetching to Psaki about former President Donald Trump’s Iowa rally from Saturday and claims he leveled about the 2020 election. Talk about a pathetic use of American taxpayer dollars.
And CNN’s Kaitlan Collins provided some pro-White House framing of the many failures and pitfalls they’re facing:
And there are several challenges facing the White House right now, not just getting the Democrats united on the President’s domestic agenda, but also skyrocketing gas prices, a bad jobs report last week. You’ve seen several issues and — including the President's poll numbers seem to be reflecting that. So, how is he viewing all of these challenges that are facing the White House right now?
Ah, yes. They’re “challenges.”
To see the relevant transcript from October 12's briefing (including questions on Afghanistan from the Los Angeles Times’s Erin Logan and one on President Biden getting a physical from NBC’s Shannon Pettypiece), click here.
