Jen Psaki, one of the most recognisable faces of the Biden administration, passed a milestone this week — she notched up more White House briefings than were held during the entire Trump presidency.
Psaki, 43, committed herself to hold briefings daily after the haphazard approach of Trump’s four press secretaries, one of whom, Stephanie Grisham, never stepped foot behind the microphone in the James Brady press briefing room.
For 14 months Psaki has earned a reputation for calmness under fire, no-nonsense put-downs and an ability to dodge most of the traps set by the more pugilistic members of the White House press corps. She has Facebook pages devoted to her including the Jen Psaki Fan Group, which recently discussed: “Are we seeing the next US president?”
Psaki’s prominence earned her a place on Russia’s list of sanctions with Biden, his son Hunter, Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, and William Burns, the CIA director.
Asked about this, Psaki gave a typically sardonic dismissal: “I would first note that President Biden is a Junior, so they may have sanctioned his dad, may he rest in peace.”
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Psaki appeared surprised to learn she hit 200 briefings on Wednesday. “Oh, wow. Time flies when you’re having fun,” she responded in a manner that could be taken at face value or as mild sarcasm, an ambiguous tone she often adopts.
Psaki’s regular sparring partner is Peter Doocy of Fox News. In one classic exchange, he asked: “If the whole point of a vaccine mandate is to make people safer but a vaccine mandate also means tons of police and military may walk off the job, then, at the end of the day, does a vaccine mandate make people safer?”
After a few back-and-forths, Psaki hit Doocy with: “What was the No 1 cause of death among police officers last year? Do you know?”
Silence. Psaki: “Covid-19. So that’s something that we’re working to address and police departments are working to address.”
Answering a question from a different reporter about Trump’s demand to “end the border nightmare”, Psaki bared her political fangs, saying: “We don’t take our advice or counsel from former President Trump on immigration policy which was not only inhumane but ineffective. We are going to chart our own path and that includes treating children with humanity and respect.”
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Psaki is also adept at evading well-aimed arrows. She was put on the spot about her tweet during the election campaign dismissing a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop as “Russian disinfo”. The New York Times finally conceded this week that emails from the laptop had been “authenticated”. Psaki’s response? “I’d point to the Department of Justice and Hunter Biden’s representatives. I’m a spokesperson for the United States; he doesn’t work for the United States.”
Psaki’s renown is spreading into popular culture, evidenced by the appearance of a Psaki impersonator on NBC’s Saturday Night Live show. She featured in the opening skit last week about TikTok influencers invited by Psaki to discuss with Biden how to resolve the Ukraine war. It was not too far from reality. The White House has been much ridiculed for gathering 30 influencers on a Zoom call to blame President Putin for high petrol prices, one of the key factors behind Biden’s low approval ratings.
The unconventional outreach led to Ellie Zeiler, an 18-year-old TikToker with 10.5 million followers, producing a video explaining that “with Putin starting this horrific fight between Ukraine and Russia, nobody wants to work with him and do international trade . . . so with people being scared of war and limited resources prices are bound to go up”.
Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas who has less than half the teenager’s number of followers on Twitter, retweeted Zeiler’s video with the complaint that: “The White House thinks the voters are stupid.” But that hit on a social media site seen by millions of young voters was another PR coup for Psaki, one of the officials behind the briefing.
