The omicron strain of the coronavirus continued to suck up much of the oxygen on Thursday as the liberal media’s fear machine dominated The Psaki Show, but Fox’s Peter Doocy focused on other topics as he sparred with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the staffing turmoil in Vice President Kamala Harris’s office and the rampant crime in American cities.
After citing the confirmed and reported staffing changes, Doocy didn’t waste any time in firing off this question: “Is the Vice President not satisfied with the staffing that she has had so far or do people just not want to work for her anymore?”
Psaki did her job as well, insisting that “working on a presidential campaign...and working in the first year of a White House is exciting and rewarding but it’s also grueling and exhausting” and thus “it’s natural for staffers who’ve thrown their heart and soul into a job to be ready to move on to a new challenge.”
After she added she wouldn’t speak to any particular announcements other than Symone Sanders’s departure and Harris’s office would have more information, Doocy pressed as to whether it’s “not a case of bad headlines...and a decision...to shake” things “up...to fix an image issue.”
Psaki made clear she wouldn’t have much else to say besides complimenting Sanders, so Doocy broadened things out and specifically whether Harris believes her “staff are to blame for her not making any kind of meaningful progress on the big things in portfolio” like immigration and voting.
Again, Psaki wasn’t interested, leaving Doocy to pivot to crime and citing how “big cities are dealing with smash-and-grab robberies, a record number of police officers have been shot and killed this year.”
“What is President Biden going to do about all this lawlessness,” he wondered.
Psaki offered a boilerplate answer about Biden’s support of law enforcement and budgeting “additional funding,” which led Doocy to ask what the White House has attributed to said lawlessness.
Asked whether it’s the pandemic, Psaki agreed, arguing “many people have conveyed that” with another one of the “root causes” being “guns and gun violence.”
Before she moved on, Doocy drew another incredible answer as to why many retail stores are no longer safe in big cities:
DOOCY: But to your point — so, when a huge group of criminals organizes themselves and they want to go loot a store, a CVS, a Nordstrom, a Home Depot until the shelves are clean, you think that's because of the pandemic?
PSAKI: I think a root cause in a lot of communities is the pandemic, yes.
A few minutes later, The Wall Street Journal’s Tarini Parti followed up on the staffing changes and whether the administration’s “expecting or preparing for turnover” and, based on Psaki’s answer, it sure seems like there will be.
NPR’s Tamara Keith and McClatchy’s Bryan Lowry were at the other end of the spectrum, pressing hard from the left as part of the liberal media’s campaign to implement Covid testing and vaccine mandates on domestic flights (click “expand”):
KEITH: And one question on Covid and I know that you kind of get variations on this, a lot, but with the testing, public health people are saying, well, why not just ship tests, ship these rapid tests to every American household. Or why not require vaccines or a test to fly domestically? Why not go further in the direction of — of, you know, public health and mandates given the risk and the fact that we’re headed into winter?
(....)
KEITH: Can you tease out what most implementable means? Are you worried about legal challenges? Are you worried about, you know, political blowback?
(....)
LOWRY: I just want to follow up on the issue of domestic air travel that came up a few moments ago. You said there is nothing off the table. Does that mean there are active discussions about a vaccine requirement or some other change when it comes to domestic air travel? Can you clarify how active that conversation is, whether we can see something before — before Christmas?
These people just won’t stop, will they?
To see the relevant transcript from December 2's briefing (including a questions about the mask mandates from CNBC’s Kayla Tausche, a school vaccine mandate from Fox Business Network’s Edward Lawrence, and boycotting the Beijing Olympics from VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara), click here.
