Fox News’ Peter Doocy elicited both laughter and a denial that he is a socialist from president Joe Biden after he asked him why the president is pulling the country to the left on Wednesday.
Biden and Doocy are known for engaging in at times contentious exchanges during press briefings. Wednesday did not disappoint when the latter began shouting at Biden more than an hour into his address to the country.
Biden had been calling on reporters but had yet to greenlight a question from Doocy. The Fox News reporter took matters into his own hands and began yelling from the back.
Biden quieted the room and gave Doocy the floor.
“You always ask me the nicest questions,” Biden joked. “None of them make a lot of sense to me, but — fire away.”
Doocy asked, “It’s a new year, why are you trying so hard in your first year to pull the country so far to the left?”
Biden responded by challenging the notion that he is anything but a mainstream Democrat. Biden said:
Well, I’m not. I don’t know what you consider to be too far to the left, if, in fact, we’re talking about making sure that we have the money for Covid. Making sure that we have the money to put together a bipartisan infrastructure bill, making sure we’re able to provide for those things that, in fact, significantly reduce the burden on working class people, but make
them have to continue to work hard. I don’t know how that is pointed to the left. If you may recall, you guys have been trying to convince me that I am Bernie Sanders.
Biden then declared that he is not a “socialist”:
I like him, but I’m not Bernie Sanders. I’m not a socialist. I’m a mainstream Democrat, and I have been. Mainstream Democrats — if you notice, the 48 of the 50 Democrats supported me in the Senate on virtually everything I’ve asked.
Watch above, via CNN.