Jen Psaki offering 'word salad' non-answers to questions about migrant children, Cuomo scandal: Concha
Psaki dodged question on Biden calling Gov. Cuomo 'gold standard' for leadership
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is providing "non-answers" and "word salads" to the press, Fox News contributor Joe Concha said on Wednesday.
Psaki on Tuesday defended the reopening of a migrant facility at the border for children under the Biden administration, saying it is a "temporary reopening" amid the COVID-19 pandemic as she was pressed on the president's past comments during the Trump administration on such facilities.
Psaki was asked by Fox News' Peter Doocy why the Biden administration was reopening a facility for migrant children in Texas -- considering President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' history railing against facilities for migrant children while Donald Trump was president. She replied that their policy is "not to expel unaccompanied children who arrive at the border."
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Psaki said that it is a "temporary reopening during COVID-19," and that the administration’s "intention is very much to close it, but we want to ensure that we can follow COVID protocols as unaccompanied minors come into the United States."
Concha told "Fox & Friends" that it's "interesting" to hear Psaki's remarks, noting that the facilities were also in operation during the Obama-Biden administration.
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"Good for Peter Doocy for pulling a Tim Russert. And that's a good thing. Read back the quote of what the candidate said. In this case, now the president and say, alright, this is what he said now, this is what's happening. Defend that. And Jen Psaki had no defense," he said.
Furthermore, Concha referred to a quote from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who expressed disapproval of the facilities.
In an op-ed in the Miami Herald about his Latin America policy published on June 24, 2019, then-candidate Joe Biden said: "Under Trump, there have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages, tear-gassing asylum seekers, ripping children from their mothers’ arms."
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And in July 2019, then-candidate Sen. Kamala Harris said that Trump "has pushed policies that’s been about putting babies in cages at the border in the name of security," instead calling it "a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government."
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Psaki also dodged a question Sunday on whether Biden still considers New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo "the gold standard" for leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden said last year that the "governor of New York has done one hell of a job" and that he thought Cuomo was "sort of the gold standard" for pandemic leadership.
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Cuomo now faces accusations that his administration hid data from the federal government on nursing home deaths.
Concha said Psaki is "providing these non-answers, these thousand-word salads that don't answer basic questions that have obvious answers. And good for Peter Doocy for calling her out on that."
Fox News' Brooke Singman, Associated Press contributed to this report.