By Mike Miller
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy has emerged as the primary thorn in White House Press Secretary Jen “Circle-Back” Psaki’s side, and Monday’s White House press conference was no exception. As Newsbusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck put it, “Fox News’s Peter Doocy is back and he’s brought the receipts on energy to Jen Psaki.”
At issue for Doocy was the promise of so-called “green jobs” touted by Psaki in past press conferences as replacement jobs for union and construction workers who suddenly found themselves unemployed after Joe Biden — on his first day in office —signed an executive order revoking a key permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
A Biden-Harris “fact sheet” site titled Climate: 10 Million Clean Energy Jobs reads, in part:
If executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class enjoyed by communities across the country, not just in cities along the coasts.
We must ensure jobs created as part of the clean energy revolution offer good wages, benefits, and worker protections.
Toward this end, President Biden will defend workers’ rights to form unions and collectively bargain in these emerging and growing industries.
As should be the case with any legitimate reporter, Doocy wanted to know where those green jobs are and when now-unemployed union workers can expect them.
“Needless to say,” as Houck tweeted, Psaki “didn’t like that he pressed her on what’s the plan for laid-off workers to get the fantastical ‘green’ jobs that Biden and (U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate [LOL] John) Kerry keep talking about.”
Psaki grew visibly tense as Doocy began his first question.
“When is it that the Biden administration is going to let the thousands of fossil fuel industry workers, whether it’s pipeline workers or construction workers, who are either out of work or soon to be out of work because of a Biden EO [executive order], when it is and where it is that they can go for their green jobs?
“That is something the administration has promised — there is now a gap — I’m just curious when those people can count on that?”
Psaki folded up like a cheap lawn chair immediately, pettily mocking Doocy:
“Well, I certainly welcome you to present your data of all the thousands and thousands of people who won’t be getting a green job. Maybe next time you’re here you can present that.”
Doocy fired back: “You said people would be getting green jobs. I’m just asking when that will happen,” as the exchange grew testier.
Psaki did what she always does when she’s asked tough questions — other than get defensive, as in the above example — which was to nervously leaf through her talking-points binder for a generic, non-answer answer.
“President Biden has proposed a climate plan with transformative investments and infrastructure. And laid out a plan that would not only create millions of good union jobs but also help tackle the climate crisis. He’s talked about his plans to also put forward a jobs plan in the weeks or months following.”
Doocy wasn’t buying.
“But there are people living paycheck to paycheck. There are now people out of jobs … It’s been 12 days since Gina McCarthy and John Kerry were here. It’s been 19 days since that EO [executive order], so what do those people who need money now — when do they get their green jobs?”
After “Uh…”, Psaki could only regurgitate more word salad, about “investment in infrastructure” (taxpayer money and increased national debt), “boosting the economy,” and “in our national interest,” as she tensely looked back-and-forth between Doocy and her binder.
The answer to Peter Doocy’s questions is that Jen “Circle-Back” Psaki has no answers and neither does her boss. Biden is too busy figuring out which of his “progressive priorities” are higher on the progressive totem pole than others, be they so-called “transgender” rights of boys to play on girls’ sports teams vs. the rights of girls and women, or in this case, the so-called “existential threat of climate change” and non-existent “green jobs” vs. the jobs of unionized fossil-fuel industry and construction workers who were abruptly thrown out of work by his executive order.
Besides, Biden spent eight months answering questions about which milkshakes he and his granddaughter ordered and other such nonsense. But now, Peter Doocy, one of a small handful of legitimate journalists asks Biden’s in-over-her-head press secretary a legitimate journalism question and she melts like the Wicked Witch of the West in the “Wizard of Oz.”
Speaking of “journalists” [sarc], check out my RedState colleague Sister Toldjah’s earlier article about Jeff Zucker’s Mini-Me Brian Stelter, CNN’s Brian Stelter Roasted for Harm He’s Done to Journalism, His Response Ends up Proving the Point.