‘Let Me Finish My Answer’: John Kirby Plows Ahead with Response After Peter Doocy Interrupts Him

White House spokesman John Kirby and Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy tangled during Tuesday’s briefing over a bill President Joe Biden signed on Monday.

Biden signed legislation declassifying U.S. intelligence about the origins of Covid-19. Theories as to its origins have taken on a partisan flavor. Many conservatives believe the virus originated in a lab via gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China. Meanwhile, some liberals believe the virus came about naturally, likely at a meat market.

“We need to get to the bottom of Covid-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics,” Biden said in a statement on Monday.

Doocy queried Kirby about the bill on Tuesday:

DOOCY: He says he will declassify Covid origins intel except info that would harm national security. Is there a bigger national security threat than something that killed 1.1 million people?

KIRBY: Yeah, I’ve seen some of the commentary on your network about this. The president obviously has to balance transparency with national security, Peter. Of course he does. Right when coming into office, [he] ordered the declassification of what the [Director of National Intelligence] had on Covid origins, ordered the entire intelligence community, and added the Department of Energy to the list –

DOOCY: Then where is it?

KIRBY: Hey, let me finish my answer.

DOOCY: If we’re talking about the beginning–

KIRBY: Added the Department of Energy and national labs, told them to keep studying it. We have kept Congress informed. Some of that has to be in a classified way right now. It’s always a balance between the public’s right to know, not need, but right and our obligation to protect national security.

So, one should not read into that statement that he’s sort of laying a foundation here to be overly secretive. He believes strongly that we’ve got to find the roots and the origins of Covid so that we can prevent a future pandemic.

Doocy followed up to ask whether the administration wants the Wuhan lab to be the source of Covid.

“Does the White House hope that the lab leak theory is not true?” he asked.

“We don’t have a hope one way or the other, Peter,” Kirby replied. “What we want is the ground truth wherever that takes us, where the science takes you, wherever the facts take you. President Biden wants to know so that he can help work with the scientific community to prevent a future pandemic. There’s no thumb on the scale here, Peter.”

Watch above via Fox News.