White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, was cornered by Philip Wegmann from RealClearPolitics when he refused to back down to her trusty old intimidation tactics. Wegmann simply wanted to know if Biden attended the weekly COVID-19 calls after several governors reported to him that the president hasn’t attended a single one.
Wegmann asked, “I’ve heard from a number of governors who are frustrated that they haven’t heard directly from President Biden on these weekly coordinating COVID calls. Why hasn’t he joined those weekly calls?”
Is the leader of the free world actively involved in lawmaker’s calls about a global pandemic, a daily legitimate question, right? WOuldn’t you want to know?
Well, Wegmann’s question visibly upset the Press sec who snapped back, “Like, how many? One, two?”, Psaki snapped.
Wegmann circled back- unlike the press sec, asking again, “Well, I’m actually curious to see how many times he’s joined those calls, and if there’s a reason why —”
Psaki seemed to be more interested in finding out the names of the Governors who snitched on the president. She continued to question the reporter and cut him off before he could respond.
Wegmann didn’t back down and continued to press for an answer. A cornered Psaki went on an entire tangent on how Biden’s not required to attend the calls:
“OK, so, two governors and some anonymous governors. I will say that the intention was never for the weekly call, the COVID call that is led by our COVID coordinator, to be a part, for the President to be leading that call. The intention was for our COVID coordinator to be providing an update directly from the president, directly from our work across the federal government to get the pandemic under control. And what we’ve done on that call is provided weekly updates on the number of doses that are going out to states, which have increased nearly every week, we’re talking about an average of about 28 million out to states now, it’s an opportunity to engage and have a discussion about where there are challenges in the system, how to better operationalize, better communicate, which was a complaint that we came in and tried to solve when we came into office. So that was the intention. I can assure you that the American public, governors hear quite a great deal from the president on his plans to get the pandemic under control, and it’s in excellent hands with his COVID coordinator.”
“To clarify: he has not joined. Does he have any plans in the future to join those calls?” Wegmann concluded.
Watch
It seems a little insane to me that Biden wouldn’t be involved in weekly calls where lawmakers discuss strategies and pandemic restrictions. Even if he’s not required why wouldn’t he be involved? That just seems nuts to me. Am I wrong? Let me know in the comments below.