Psaki busts Fox News reporter trying to trick her with distorted quote

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday called out Fox News reporter Peter Doocy after he truncated parts of an interview in an attempt to criticize President Joe Biden.

In his question, Doocy quoted AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka from a recently aired interview with Axios, making it seem as though Biden was hiding details about new jobs available to former workers in the “fossil fuel industry” and workers who may be impacted by a recent executive order.

Doocy cited Trumka saying, “I wish [Biden] had paired that more carefully with things that he did second, by saying, Here’s where we are creating the jobs,” while discussing Biden’s decision to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

But Psaki quickly pointed out that Doocy had omitted the full context of Trumka’s statement.

“You didn’t include all of his interview. Would you like to include the rest?” Psaki asked.

Fox News has a long history of misquoting or taking public figures out of context, then using those statements in attacks on progressives and Democrats.

When Doocy did not elaborate, Psaki noted, “What Mr. Trumka also indicated in the same interview was that President Biden has proposed a climate plan with transformative investments in infrastructure and laid out a plan that will not only create millions of good union jobs but also help tackle the climate crisis.”

The video from the Axios interview shows Trumka saying, “I wish he had paired that more carefully with the thing that he did second, by saying, Here’s where we’re creating jobs. We can do mine reclamation, we can fix leaks and we can fix seeps, and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in doing all of that stuff.”

From a Feb. 8 White House press briefing:

PETER DOOCY, Fox News: Richard Trumka, who is a friend, long-time friend of Joe Biden, says about that Day One Keystone E.O., he says “I wish he” — the president — “had paired that more carefully with things that he did second, by saying, Here’s where we are creating the jobs.”

 

So, there’s partial evidence from Richard Trumka —

 

JEN PSAKI: Well, you didn’t include all of his interview. Would you like to include the rest?

 

DOOCY: So how about this? The Laborers International Union of North America said the Keystone decision will cost 1,000 existing union jobs and 10,000 projected construction jobs.

 

PSAKI: Well, what Mr. Trumka also indicated in the same interview was that President Biden has proposed a climate plan with transformative investments in infrastructure and laid out a plan that will not only create millions of good union jobs, but also help tackle the climate crisis.

 

And as the president has indicated, when he gave his prime-time address, to talk about the American Rescue Plan, he talked about his plans to also put forward a jobs plan in the weeks or months following. And he has every plan to do exactly that.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.