Then and Now: Doocy, Psaki Do Battle Over Biden’s Covid Hypocrisy, Border Crisis

After the Thanksgiving holiday, Monday’s Psaki show returned to its regular schedule with an packed audience. This was in response to the Omicron coronavirus variant and new travel restrictions. So, it fell to Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy to question Press Secretary Jen Psaki on, among other issues, President Biden’s hypocrisy on Covid travel bans and his latest mask faux pas.

Doocy got straight to the point with Doocy’s question about Biden’s Covid comments and Psaki before his turn. “Before Joe Biden was President, he said that Covid travel restrictions on foreign countries were ‘hysterical,’ ‘xenophobia,’ and ‘fearmongering.’ So, what changed?”

Possessing zero shame, Psaki insisted he “put it in full context,” which was supposedly about Biden being “critical of was the way that the former President put out, I believe, a xenophobic tweet, in how he called — what he called the coronavirus, and — and who he directed it at.”

Psaki added that Biden “has not been critical of travel restrictions” since “we have put those in place ourselves” to “follow the advice of health and medical experts.”

Matt Whitlock is our friend pointed out, Psaki’s response should be torn to pieces by the so-called fact-checkers in the establishment press as Biden did indeed denounce the China ban.

Psaki is worse than Biden. Speak outTrump declared that he would ban travel to Africa if he so chose. “further diminished the U.S. in the eyes of the world.”

Doocy then changed his mind and said that Biden was unmasked when he went shopping in Nantucket Massachusetts this weekend. Initially, Psaki played dumb, but then offered a more formal set of responses, including the claim that it’s imperative for even the vaccinated to mask up because it “save[s]…the lives of” one’s “friends and neighbors” (click “expand”):

DOOCY: On Saturday, the President was seen shopping inside. He had a glass covering his face that said face must be covered. However, his face was not covered. Why? 

PSAKI: President follows all the recommendations of the CDC. What were the conditions at that time? 

DOOCY: He was shopping in a store and on the glass outside, it said “face covering required,” and we could see him inside and his face was uncovered. 

PSAKI, Peter: Again, we recommend and advise that you wear masks in public places. This establishment is not my knowledge. The President obviously follows the health — the advice of his health and medical team. 

DOOCY: Is — is there concern that when the President says today, “please wear your mask indoors in public settings around other people,” and he doesn’t do that, that it’s going to make it harder to get people to follow him? 

PSAKI: I think you see the American people and all of you see the President wearing an mask every time he comes out to an event, when he’s sitting in meetings, and certainly he will continue to model behavior he hopes the American people will follow. They are not there for him, but to save lives. 

Doocy addressed two additional topics before wrapping. “Joe Biden once described the Remain in Mexico policy as ‘dangerous,’‘ inhumane,’ ‘goes against everything we stand for as a nation of immigrants.’ So, why is he keeping it?”

Psaki affirmed Biden “continues to stand behind exactly those comments and statements,” but the administration has had to reimplement it due to a court order, which Doocy took as time to move to the last question.

We should also note that Biden stated last week that he had his “administration is monitoring the situation in Waukesha closely” and how it’s since “revealed by prosecutors that the assailant — the assailant swerved his truck side-to-side as part of an intentional act to run over as many people as possible,” Doocy wondered why Biden hasn’t gone to visit the victims.

Using a line that would have been ridiculed if uttered by a Trump official, Psaki emphasized that “our hearts go out to this community” and they were “in touch…with officials,” but there’s no trip to announce because “any president going to visit a community requires a lot of assets” and “requires taking their resources.”

Later on, reporters such as NPR’s Franco Ordoñez and The Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui pushed the White House from the left to implement measures such as new mask mandates and vaccine requirements for domestic flights. 

And, of course, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor seemed to suggest race was involved in banning travel from southern Africa (even though it’s the origin of this new Covid strain) (click “expand”):

SIDDIQUI: So, the President said earlier today that there haven’t been any recommendations to put in place domestic travel requirements, but what we saw with the Delta variant is that once it was already here, it spread rapidly across the country, so why not have any testing or vaccination requirements whatsoever for domestic air travel, since people are — you know, flowing fairly openly across country.

(….)

TTYLER PAGER [The Washington Post]: Does the White House have any plans — I know you said that Biden himself — his travel will not be restricted, but in terms of events, the White House is hosting this holiday season Christmas Party, Hanukkah party. Is there any plan to limit the size of this gathering or restrict its number? Um, capacity issues with the — this spread of the new variant.

(….)

ORDOÑEZ: I wanted — the President was seeming pretty clear that — not interested in any type of lockdowns, but is the White House or is the administration encouraging some of these cities, including Washington, D.C., to rethink decisions to lift the mask mandates that they have?

(….)

BRIAN LOWRY [McClatchy]Today, a Federal Court issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the vaccination requirement for healthcare workers within 10 states. How did that decision affect the public? What does it mean for the country’s readiness to accept the new model?

(….)

ALCINDOR: And you said — you said just a few moments ago there are hundreds of cases in Africa and — and only a few or as many — not as many in Europe. Can you speak about the science that explains this? Is about the president’s scientists are telling him that because there are hundreds — 

PSAKI: Thousands.

ALCINDOR: — thousands of cases — I was just reading what you said. There are thousands of African cases, but not so many Europeans. That’s the science behind why a travel ban needs to be in place because — I guess I’m just trying to understand why, if one person, let’s say, in Germany or somewhere else gets on a plane and comes to the United States. Doesn’t it make sense for that same percentage to be able to get the variant in the United States as well? Would you be able to talk more about the science and reasoning behind this decision?

You can click here to see the pertinent transcript (with additional questions) from Nov 29’s briefing.