CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Confronts Jen Psaki on Refusal to Call Detainment of Migrant Children a ‘Crisis’

During Thursday’s press briefing, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins pushed Biden administration press secretary Jen Psaki on the question of how the White House refers to, and considers, the situation at the southern border.

Collins asked Psaki why the administration is refusing to call the situation with regard to the detention of minor children a crisis.

“A question on the border. The administration has refused to call it a crisis, instead referring to it as a challenge and saying what you call it doesn’t make a difference to how you’re responding to it,” said Collins. “But, now today there are over 3,700 children, unaccompanied migrant children in border patrol custody, they’re spending on average over a hundred hours, 4 days in these facilities that are jail-like facilities not meant for children.”

“So how can you say that’s not a crisis?” Collins asked.

Collins referred to the refusal and explanation offered by the administration, a pattern which was best demonstrated earlier this week at another briefing, when multiple reporters challenged Psaki following comments by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that there is no border crisis.

In answer to Collins’s comprehensively pointed question, Psaki stuck to the administration script in refusing to use the word crisis.

“It doesn’t matter what you call it, it is an enormous challenge, it something that is front and center for the President,” said Psaki, adding that “while there are no final policy decisions, there are a variety of actions under consideration.”

Psaki listed a number of other steps that President Joe Biden is taking in assessing and addressing various border issues, saying somewhat opaquely that he is “very in the weeds on the operational details here.”

“Our focus here is on getting to the root of the issues and taking actions, and we don’t feel the need to, you know, play games with what it’s called,” said the press secretary who just dedicated 90 or so seconds to avoiding the word crisis for some reason.

“But aren’t those the steps that you would take if it was a crisis that you have on your hands?” Collins asked, giving Psaki a way to call it a crisis without calling it a crisis, being that she doesn’t feel the need to play games with what it’s called.

But Psaki did not take the out, instead replying that “these are the policies that we’re taking to address what we feel is a vital, human challenge at the border,” offering yet another label for the situation that didn’t include the forbidden word “crisis.”

After that latest label, Psaki emphasized that the administration doesn’t “see the need to put any labels” before going to the next question.

Watch the clip above, via the White House.

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