Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy tried to undermine President Biden by claiming he doesn't support police or funding for police, and was rewarded with a Psaki bomb for his effort.
The Fox News reporter tried to argue that the hundreds of billions of dollars in the American Rescue Plan which Republicans did not vote for which would have gone to state and local police departments wasn't promoted as stopping a crime wave.
"Cedric Richmond said 'Republicans defunded the police by not supporting the American Rescue Plan' but how is that an argument to be made when the President never mentioned any money for the police to stop a crime wave when he was selling the American Rescue Plan?" Doocy asked with a straight face.
"The president did mention that the American Rescue Plan - state and local funding - something that is supported by the president and a lot of Democrats who supported and voted for the bill could help ensure local cops were kept on the beat in communities across the country," she replied evenly.
"As you know, it didn't receive a single Republican vote," she reminded him. "That funding has been used to keep cops on the beat."
Doocy came back whining that at the time Biden didn't promote this massive rescue plan as simply being targeted to support the police, but instead was related to a pandemic-related budget shortfall, as if the reason for laying off cops mattered more than the fact they were laid off.
"I think that any local department would argue that keeping cops on the beat to keep communities safe when they had to, because of the budget shortfalls, fire/police is something that helps them address crime in their local communities," Psaki explained.
Doocy continually tried to claim the entire rescue plan was just about stimulus money going to suffering people. Which is a very good thing by the way.
Her short response was, "It did those things as well."
"It was a pretty good bill and piece of legislation," she concluded.
Drops mic.
The punch landed, because Newsbusters lost their sh*t over it.
Absolutely shameless. Under questioning from Fox's Peter Doocy, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki argues it's *Republicans* who have been defunding the police and not supporting law enforcement because they didn't vote for Biden's stimulus boondoggle the American Rescue Plan. pic.twitter.com/pIwfFkonu1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 28, 2021
I'm a few minutes behind and I saw the tweet from @CalebJHull and I thought, "no way is she this insane," but alas, she was!
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 28, 2021
That caused the White House to push back.
It was hardly a secret! Here's @POTUS on March 6, cc: @pdoocy
"Local governments that have lost tens of thousands of essential workers will be — have the resources they need available to them, to those laid-off police officers ... they can rehire."https://t.co/xvRJ7JFkcs— Mike Gwin (@MGwin46) June 28, 2021
And you don’t need to take our word.
NAPO: We “worked to ensure that direct aid to state and local governments was included in the American Rescue Plan.” https://t.co/bmFqjLHcjj
FOP: The ARP “will help governments…maintain vital public safety services.”https://t.co/8bAzo4HUQg https://t.co/dLXmeWNzDj— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) June 28, 2021
And Rep. Bobby Scott:
Republicans have already voted twice this year to defund the police. They all voted against the American Rescue Plan which contained critical funds for states & localities to fund emergency services, and they also voted against the Capitol Hill security supplemental spending bill https://t.co/kkIP2cVDvE
— Rep. Bobby Scott (@BobbyScott) June 28, 2021
So yes, Republicans voted to defund the police when they all voted the American Rescue Plan down. And young Doocy is an idiot for trying to somehow differentiate funding for covid layoffs from funding police to fight crime. She went easy on him this time.
Karoli Kuns contributed to this article
