Jen Psaki comes out swinging
Press Secretary Jen Psaki may be leaving her position soon, but in nearly a year and a half spent on the job, she’s mastered the art of destroying right-wing spin when she talks to the press. Her routine takedowns of Fox reporter Peter Doocy have become a regular source of entertainment on Twitter – leaving most of us to wonder how he still has press credentials after making a fool of himself so often. Even better than her performance at daily press briefings are her appearances on political talk shows like the one she made on Sunday.
While being interviewed on Fox News, Psaki was asked if she thought Title 42 would get lifted – a policy that the host tried to connect to the southern border. She wasn’t having it, however – and immediately flipped the question: “Well, first, Title 42 is not an immigration plan or an immigration authority. No one in the administration thinks that. It’s an authority given to the CDC actually by Congress to make a determination about whether it should still stay in place. We agree that the immigration system is broken, it should be addressed and we should do more to fix it, and Democrats, moderates, wherever they fall in the party, Republicans of any flavor want to work with us on that, would love to do that.”
It’s fairly obvious that Republicans don’t have a clear fix in mind and never have – nor do they have a willingness to come to the table and fix an issue that they exploit specifically to drum up xenophobic anger. Psaki is aware that the media isn’t really willing to press any of them on what they would do and that’s up to Democrats running for office. It needs to be clear to voters that Republicans don’t have a plan and never have. This isn’t just when it comes to immigration, it’s every last issue they try to press us on and it’s time to put them back on the defense.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making