Peter Doocy Responds to White House Pushback on Immigration Exchange With Biden: ‘If That’s What the President Meant, He Could Have Just Said That’

Fox News’ Peter Doocy responded Thursday to the White House’s pushback over his Wednesday back-and-forth with President Joe Biden.

Doocy confronted the president yesterday over reporting in The Wall Street Journal that the government is in talks to give $450,000 per person to immigrant families separated under the Trump administration to resolve lawsuits.

The Fox News correspondent asked Biden, “Do you think that might incentivize more people to come over illegally?”

“If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah,” the president responded.

Doocy asked if he meant it was a “garbage report.” Biden said yes.

However, this took the ACLU by surprise, and they said the president “may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department as it carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional governmental policy.”

Doocy asked White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about this during Thursday’s briefing. “Who is right?”

Jean-Pierre said, “If it saves taxpayer dollars and puts the disastrous history of the previous administration’s use of zero tolerance and family separation behind us, the president is perfectly comfortable with the Department of Justice settling with the individuals and families who are currently in litigation with the U.S. government.”

“The president, what he was reacting to, was the dollar figure that was mentioned, that you mentioned to him yesterday, as press accounts today indicate,” she continued, saying the DOJ has made clear “the reported figures are higher than anywhere a settlement can land.”

“What changed then from yesterday?” Doocy asked. “Yesterday he said that’s not going to happen.”

Jean-Pierre again said this is about addressing the Trump administration’s “cruel, inhuman, immoral policies.”

Hours later on Fox News, Doocy spoke with Bret Baier about that pushback. “If officials around here say that $450,000 is too much, then we can accurately report that these payments will be up to $449,000.”

“That is what they’re hanging their pushback on, right?” Baier asked. “That he said that’s not going to happen, he was specifically referring to 450,000 as opposed to 300 or 400?”

“Yes, but, Bret, if that’s what the president meant, he could have just said that,” Doocy said. “I asked him a very direct question, and he dismissed the idea entirely.”

You can his comments on Fox News and his earlier exchange with Jean-Pierre (via WaPo) above.