‘I’m Looking At You, Peter’: Psaki Notes Reporters ‘Talked a Lot About’ Immigration Long Before it Became Midterm Issue
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki singled out Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy when pointing out that immigration has been a frequent topic in the briefing room long before current reporting on its significance in the midterms.
A New York Times report this week detailed the extent to which immigration and inflation could be significant issues in the midterms, and that President Joe Biden’s pollsters have been sending up warning flares for over a year now on both of those themes.
At Monday’s press briefing, ABC News White House correspondent Cecilia Vega asked Psaki about that report, as well as new ABC News/Washington Post polling on the issues.
Vega asked Psaki “can you speak to how the administration is digesting this data, including these remarks from the pollster? And is there a sense right now that there needs to be some kind of course correction on these two issues, given that polling in the midterms being just six months out?”
Psaki answered at length that President Biden has supported actions to address both issues for a long time and that any intensified focus on those issues is more “about the time of year that we are approaching, less a course correction from ongoing policy work that has been done from the beginning.”
Vega followed up on the issue of immigration, and Psaki name-checked Doocy in her response:
MS. VEGA: But given the situation at the border right now and this pollster’s warning that immigration seems to be a growing vulnerability for the President, does the White House believe that to be the case that immigration could become a very serious liability for this White House come November?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I believe that a lot of the reporting in that story dated back to memos from last year as well. And I would note from many of you who are in this briefing room, we talked a lot — I’m looking at you, Peter — a lot about immigration in this room back to last year, in part because the system is so broken. It is long overdue to be fixed. That’s why the President proposed a bill on his first day in office.
Removing ourselves from the politics on that, we’ve long known that that was a substantive policy issue that more work needed to be done on. Not only did he put forward a bill on his first day in office, he has been a supporter and advocate for many attempts by Democrats in the Senate to include it in reconciliation bills. And we’re going to continue to work with anyone who is willing and able and open to the engagement on getting immigration reform done.
Doocy has made immigration a frequent topic of his contentious exchanges with Psaki, but it was then-Fox News White House correspondent Kristin Fisher who touched off a blizzard of questions from other reporters by asking if the situation at the border constituted a “crisis” last March. Fisher has since left the network and joined CNN.
Watch above via The White House and Reuters.
