Tuesday’s episode of The Psaki Show featured Fox News’s Peter Doocy hammering Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the Biden administration’s claim that the biggest threat America is facing is climate change, as well as a pointed question by Doocy over an old Biden tweet. [bold, links added]
Once called on, Doocy wasted no time getting to the point, asking Psaki about a hyperbolic claim by the Biden Pentagon that the “greatest threat facing America is global warming.”
He asked Psaki if that was still the administration’s assessment despite the fact that we are “facing down a potential cyberwar with Russia.”
Of course, Psaki tried running out the clock by telling Doocy that the U.S. “is always prepared for any threat any outside entity or country poses.”
Psaki then claimed that since the global warming threat comments were from the Pentagon, he would have to ask them.
Not happy with that answer, Doocy continued drilling down:
So as far as anybody watching who’s seen the coverage, it’s very–at times distressing images of Russian military movements. The number one threat facing the country right now remains global warming?
There was still no answer from Psaki on whether the Biden administration thinks global warming is the biggest threat facing America.
Yet moments later, Doocy brought up an old tweet from Biden in which he wrote that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want him to be President:
Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be President. He doesn’t want me to be our nominee. If you’re wondering why — it’s because I’m the only person in this field who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 21, 2020
On that front, Doocy asked Psaki about the tough-talking tweets from then-candidate Biden:
But so I guess to follow up on that the President said before he got here that Putin knows if I am President of the United States, his days of tyranny and trying to intimidate the United States and those in eastern Europe are over. It’s two and a half years later. He is intimidating the United States and those in Eastern Europe.
Psaki clearly took offense and claimed that she “would hardly put it that way” and bragged that “Biden has rallied the world, rallied Europe to stand up against the efforts and the actions of President Putin.”
Later on in the briefing, Doocy’s wife and Fox Business Network correspondent Hillary Vaughn had two questions for Psaki.
The first was “if Nord Stream 2 going online was such a threat, why in May did the President waive sanctions on the company and the chief executive behind it?”
Before letting Psaki answer both, Vaughn laid down the marker with her other question:
“Is there a concern that Nord Stream 2 if Russia were to make concessions or retreat in some way that might open up the door to Nord Stream 2 going back online, or is it your understanding that it is dead no matter what Russia does?”
In response, Psaki said that Biden “has never been a supporter of Nord Stream 2” and that “Nord Stream 2 is not moving forward” nor has it “been operational anyway.”
Towards the end of the briefing, Real Clear Politics’ Phillip Wegmann asked a good question about sanctions that clearly caught Psaki off guard.
Wegmann asked if any of the Russian oligarchs and elites being sanctioned were “being sanctioned for the first time” or were they simply repeat offenders.
Psaki had no answer and told Wegmann that she would get back to him with a “more specific breakdown.”
Wegmann’s second question was equally intriguing when recalled that White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned that the “Russian invasion of Ukraine would lead to U.S. Sanctions warning that would necessarily make Moscow more beholden to Beijing,” and that if the Biden administration is “taking any steps or issuing any warnings to keep those geopolitical foes from aligning together and marching in lockstep?”
Psaki said that China and Russia were already “moving closer together in some capacity” long before the current Russia/Ukraine conflict.
Read more at NewsBusters
