‘Come On, Peter’: John Kirby Dismisses Doocy’s Claim Biden Is ‘Trying to Have It Both Ways’ on Israel

White House spokesman John Kirby dismissed Fox News’ Peter Doocy’s claim that President Joe Biden is trying to have it “both ways” on Israel.

On Thursday, Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since seven aid workers were killed by Israeli drone strikes inside Gaza. On Thursday’s call, Biden “made clear” that Israel must change the way it’s fighting to decrease civilian deaths or the U.S. may be forced to make policy changes, though these changes were not specified.

Doocy questioned Kirby during Thursday’s White House briefing about whether the Biden administration’s support for Israel is flagging.

“On October 7, President Biden said, ‘My support for Israel is rock solid and unwavering.’ That is not true anymore, correct?” Doocy asked during Thursday’s press briefing, which led to this exchange:

KIRBY: “No, It is true.”

DOOCY: “How is his support unwavering, but you’re also reconsidering policy choices?”

KIRBY: “Both can be true.”

DOOCY: “They cannot be true! They’re completely different things. He is wavering. How is he not wavering?”

KIRBY: No, no. I’m sorry. Ah, come on Peter. Come on. Come on now.

As I said, and as it said in that readout, we made clear, and he made it clear to the prime minister, that our support for Israel’s self-defense remains ironclad. They face a range of threats and the United States isn’t going to walk away from helping Israel defend itself.

That said, you can say all that, and you can act on that, and you can believe that — and the president does — and still believe that the manner in which they’re defending themselves against the Hamas threat needs to change. And that is the conversation that we had today. But both things are true. Our support is ironclad and consistent. It’s not gonna stop, it’s not gonna…waiver. Will there perhaps be some policy changes we might have to make if we don’t see policy changes out of Israel? Yes.

DOOCY: How is it unwavering? It sounds like you guys are trying to have it both ways here.

KIRBY: No.

DOOCY: “We support Israel, but we’re going to make all these changes cause we don’t support Israel.”

KIRBY: I didn’t say we were gonna make changes. I said we have to see how Israel responds.

Watch the clip above.