The Biden administration has been considerably more available to answer questions about policy and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic than the previous administration. (This is, of course, faint praise.) As always, right-wing “reporters” in the press corps hope to muddy the waters of recent memory, revising the previous administration’s corruption and grievous errors in judgment through loaded or misleading questions.

Peter Doocy, son of Fox News’ on-air “personality” Steve Doocy, has made it his brand to ask some of the most pointless questions in the White House press room. Doocy, who usually sits in the front row to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s right, is frequently given an early chance to fill out his conservative misinformation bingo card, probably because Psaki doesn’t want to have to deal with him at the end of her briefings when she could potentially lose her cool and justifiably throw a podium at him. 

On Wednesday, Doocy’s Fox News angle was that vaccine hesitancy is actually Joe BIden’s fault, not the natural and intended result of the continued misinformation coming from the Republican Party’s leadership, or disgraced Donald Trump’s pathological delusion of late that he wasn’t the president that oversaw the catastrophic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, Psaki employed the tried-and-true practice of reminding Mr. Doocy about observable facts and recorded history.

The foundation of Doocy’s blame-game rhetoric comes from Biden’s campaign speeches and interviews, in which he was highly critical of Trump—and specifically critical of Trump’s claims that he was handling the COVID-19 pandemic comprehensively. Doocy tries to connect Biden’s statements—that the American people should not trust Donald Trump—with vaccination hesitancy among … people who voted for Donald Trump. Got it.

Psaki first responds by saying she thinks “it’s safe to say that [President Biden] still doesn’t trust Donald Trump.” She then goes on to tell Doocy that Joe Biden does trust scientific experts and the people working for our country, especially those in the Centers for DIsease Control (CDC) and the people at the FDA, who are tasked with making sure things like vaccines are safe to be administered to the public. “I’d also note, because this question often comes up, that the President has repeatedly given credit to scientists and experts from the prior administration, even as recently as just a few weeks ago, for their role in moving the vaccines forward.”

But Doocy, and frankly every other right-wing reporter asking Psaki questions these days, doesn’t get paid to ask vacuous questions. He gets paid to manufacture fake gotcha moments, which usually only exist in the tenor he and others pantomime with insincere follow-up questions. Doocy re-asks the same question ending with “Did that create any kind of vaccine hesitancy?”

Psaki, trying to provide Doocy with the kindest, most condescending smile allowed by law explains: “Not that we’ve seen in the data. I would note that at the time, just for context, the former president was also suggesting people inject versions of poison into their veins to cure COVID.”

Ka … boom. You can refresh your memory concerning the brain trust that was the Trump administration here. Doocy’s attempts at revising reality begin around the 16:30 mark.

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