We haven't talked about any press briefings
by Joe Biden's White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, for a bit. We've been tied up with other things like
covid stimulus and much more. But I want to look at one today because it's
quite interesting what's going on. First of all, this first clip is CBS reporter
Lijiang asking Jen Psaki to respond to claims that Joe Biden has opened the border wide
open and people are just pouring, pouring in. And it wasn't happening under Donald Trump,
but it is now. Now, it's really important to remember that
even though Donald Trump didn't build the wall during his presidency, he would regularly
claim that he built it and that the imaginary wall was responsible for record low undocumented
crossings. Now, bear with me because this requires assuming
multiple lies are true to understand their position. If you believe Trump, that he built the wall. And of course, if you believe that Joe Biden
hasn't taken down that wall, you would have to imagine that the job that the wall was
doing at keeping people out when Trump was president is still keeping people out today. But the narrative has shifted into Biden has
opened the border and people with diseases are pouring in. The Nazi rhetoric that we talked about earlier. And here Jen Psaki smartly goes after the
idea of Americans are saying and gets reporter Wijk Zhang to admit, well, I mean, Trump Trump
is the one saying it. And Jen Psaki quickly dispenses with the nonsense. But a lot of Americans are saying that the
surges are happening under President Biden's watch after he reversed some previous policies. So does the administration take any accountability
for what's happening for the Americans? Well, I know you don't answer to him, but
the former president just released a statement saying that the Biden administration must
act immediately to end the border nightmare that they have unleashed on Chinese President
Trump. Yes, we don't take our advice or counsel from
former President Trump on immigration policy, which was not only inhumane but ineffective
over the last four years. We're going to chart our own path forward. And that includes treating children with humanity
and respect and ensuring they're safe when they cross our borders. This is just so funny. And I'm not even really looking to criticize
Zhang. I think that she's asking what are meant to
be tough questions. She asked them of Kayleigh McEnany. She asks them of Jen Psaki. It's more a lesson in how vapid and politically
biased these claims are. Where from Trump's last day to Biden's tenth
day, Republicans started wildly claiming Joe Biden has opened the border wide open. Joe Biden has dramatically changed what's
going on at the border when, in fact, if there is a real critique of Joe Biden here, it's
that he hasn't changed that much about what's going on at the border since taking over,
despite promises to do so. We talked about that early last week. I won't rehash the entire conversation. Just a few more funny examples of high jinks
at the latest press briefing. Here's a reporter asking why Joe Biden hasn't
done a solo press briefing yet. So we're 45 days into the Biden presidency,
and he has yet to hold a pressure at this point in past presidencies. Every president, you know, proudly Reagan
had addressed reporters several dozen, multiple times. So why the delay and why do we expect the
president to hold a press conference? Well, first, as all of you know, the president
takes questions several times a week. He took questions actually twice yesterday,
which is an opportunity for the people covering the White House to ask him about whatever
news is happening on any given day. We look forward to holding a full press conference
in the coming weeks before the end of the month. And we're working on setting a final date
for that. And as soon as we do, we will let you all
know. I can really kind of see both sides on this. I mean, certainly presidents should be taking
questions from the press. It is true that while you usually see both
the president and their press secretary taking questions in the press briefing room, Biden
hasn't done that yet. But Biden is holding covid related and other
events almost daily. And he doesn't take questions at all of them,
but he's taking questions a whole bunch of times in his first six weeks in office sometimes,
as Jen Psaki points out, more than once in a day. OK, I mean, the point is that the press in
the midst of what is at least for now, a very popular presidency, all things considered,
Biden again, highest initial approval of any president in 30 years, almost 70 percent covid
relief, support, et cetera. The press are having to sort of manufacture
problems or scandals, and it's not going super well, I. That there are plenty of fair critiques they
could go after, but they're going after other things. One other example, Fox News reporter stepping
away briefly from the Dr Seuss scandal, which has been 24/7 on Fox News for about a week
now to push this crisis at the border thing. And I think what Jen Psaki does well here,
she doesn't do everything well, but this she did well. She refuses to escalate into the hysterical
language that the reporter from FOX is baiting her with. Take a look. Are there any discussions within the White
House about reversing the policy of allowing all unaccompanied children into the United
States? No, not at all. So I guess, is the plan then to take in and
safely and humanely find a home for an unlimited number of unaccompanied children? I think this issue requires us taking a step
back as human beings and as mothers, of which I am one. I know there are many in the room or many
at home. These kids are coming. They are fleeing prosecution. They are fleeing difficult circumstances in
their home country when they come here. All where we're talking about here is ensuring
that they are treated safely, they are not trafficked, they are not sent back on a unsafe
journey. That's what we're talking about. When they come when these kids come in, it
doesn't mean they are ensured that they get to stay. They go through the processing system that
everyone goes through. But we want to ensure that that is done by
treating them humanely and with respect. Many of them will be sent back home eventually. But we're talking about how we treat them
as they come in the country. Now, I have been critical of Joe Biden on
immigration. I think his one executive order on stopping
removals, which was stopped by a judge, wasn't enough. He should have done another one using a different
legal rationale. I talked about that last Monday. But the hysterical critique, that policy has
dramatically changed in six weeks, resulting in people just now pouring in uncontrollably. It's silly the projection that the Fox News
reporter cites about one hundred and ten thousand or whatever that number was. We had similar projections under Trump. The point is under Trump, what they're counting
on is that under Trump, nobody who watches Fox knew that these are just the normal numbers
that immigration authorities are dealing with. So when the Fox News reporter there says the
expectation is 110000 kids will come, it sounds shocking, but there's nothing particularly
notable about those numbers. This is a huge country and those are the same
numbers we were seeing under Donald Trump. So we'll see if and how the tone and tenor
of the briefings change over time from now. This is what it's been like. And Jen Psaki handling it relatively well,
The David Pakman Show at David Pakman dot com.
