Megyn Kelly Producer Rips Fox’s Peter Doocy Over Briefing Antics: ‘These Are Not Good Questions’
Megyn Kelly Executive Producer Steve Krakauer ripped Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy over his overtly “antagonistic” questioning of White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a briefing.
Doocy has risen to prominence at Fox News with a brand of antagonism toward President Joe Biden and his press secretaries — first Jen Psaki and now Jean-Pierre — that features heavy use of loaded questions.
At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, that technique drew some fire from Krakauer — a Mediaite alumnus, longtime conservative media creator, and EP of The Megyn Kelly Show — who didn’t appreciate Doocy’s act.
Krakauer reacted to video of a particularly loaded exchange by writing on Twitter/X that “These are not good questions. They’re intentionally antagonistic and are not designed to actually elicit substantive answers. The public is not served by exchanges like this.”
In the exchange, Doocy asked about an excerpt from Franklin Foer’s new book “The Last Politician”:
PETER DOOCY: Thank you, Karine. President Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Why does White House staff treat him like a baby?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No one treats the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, like a baby.
PETER DOOCY: So, there’s this book that says —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s ridiculous.
PETER DOOCY: — when staff walked back —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s a ridiculous claim.
PETER DOOCY: — what sounded like a call for regime change in Russia, the President, quote, “Rather than owning his failure, he fumed to friends about how he was treated like a toddler. Was John Kennedy ever babied like that?”
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I’ll say this: There’s going to be a range — always — a range of books that are — about every administration, as you know — that’s going to have a variety of claims. That is not unusual. That happens all the time. And we’re not going to litigate those here. That’s something that we’re not going to speak to.
There is one thing that I do want to — because I think I was asked this question last week by one of your colleagues, about this particular excerpt that they were referring to — and so, I’ll say this: You know, we did see the excer- — excerpt — the context of the excerpt, and it seemed to be making the opposite overall point about how the value of his experience and wisdom resulted in rallying the free world against authoritarianism, which is important — we have seen this; you all have seen this — and passage of the most historic agenda in recent history in his handling of foreign policy, like rallying the world around Ukraine, as you just heard from our Nationally Security — National Security Advisor, who laid out, in really good questions that your colleagues asked, about how the President is moving forward, about Ukraine, about kind of leading into these conversations that he’s going to be having at the G20.
Krakauer previously defended Doocy when he complained the president was snubbing him at formal press conferences, writing in 2021 “This is pathetic deflection. If the WHCA had any backbone they’d say something and have Doocy’s back, but sadly they don’t.”
Watch above via The White House.
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