White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave her daily press conference on Thursday, and she balked at one question from a reporter.
The New York Times White House Correspondent Michael Shear pointed out some comparisons between the policies of President Joe Biden and those of former President Donald Trump.
Psaki interrupted him. “Well, but who? Who are we talking about here?” she asked curtly. “Who is saying that the President is like Trump?”
In reality, Shear’s question was about whether the comparison was accurate, not about who made the comparison. But, Psaki framed it that way, anyway.
Shear pointed to Biden’s policies on Cuba, Afghanistan, immigration, the pandemic, tariffs against China, and the French outrage over the submarine deal.
“There have been a number of issues in the last, say, several weeks in which advocates — allies of the President are describing him as ‘Trump-like,’ less in terms of his personality and sort of tone and tenor, obviously, but in terms of policy,” Shear remarked. “Even today, a representative of the Cuban government describing the frustration with the President continuing to maintain Trump-era policies vis-à-vis Cuba.”
The representative of the Cuban government was Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, a politburo member of the Communist Party of Cuba. He criticized Biden’s sanctions against Cuba during an interview with NBC on Thursday.
So far, Biden has kept Trump’s sanctions, despite pressure from House Democrats.
“Maybe there is an inertia effect. It’s a pity that President Biden couldn’t implement his own policy toward Cuba,” Rodríguez Parrilla told NBC. “It’s a terrible mistake to continue implementing this kind of cruel sanctions, even sanctions during a pandemic.”
That’s wrong. Biden has both kept Trump’s sanctions and issued sanctions of his own.
In a statement from July 22, Biden announced new sanctions against the minister of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Yet, In April 2020, a reporter for CBS Miami asked Biden whether he would roll back Trump’s sanctions on Cuba. Biden said, “Yes, I would. In large part, I would go back.”
Biden has stalled on his promise, and Cuban diplomats have blamed “inertia.”
With the foreign minister in mind, Psaki asked Shear, “Beyond the representative of the Cuban government, who?”
Shear continued to reframe the question. He asked Psaki about Biden’s use of Title 42, Section 265 of the United States Code.
Title 42 allows the Surgeon General to keep out migrants suspected of carrying infectious diseases. The Trump administration used this policy to prohibit land entry for many migrants, due to concerns about corona. The Biden administration has continued this policy.
In fact, when a federal court blocked Biden’s Title 42 program, the Biden administration appealed the court’s decision. The appeals court ultimately ruled in Biden’s favor.
Psaki took down the reporter’s questions on each Afghanistan, defense contracting, and the coronavirus crisis. On Afghanistan, she said:
I would say the President took a pretty different approach than that in ending a war that the former President didn’t end — something the American people strongly support.
Then she addressed Biden’s submarine deal and the comparison to Trump. She said:
As it relates to AUKUS, I’m not even sure what that’s referring to, in terms of what they’re comparing. The President worked with key partners — Australia and the United Kingdom — to come to an agreement that would help provide security in an important part of the world — in the Indo-Pacific — a priority that, frankly, getting out of the war in Afghanistan leaves space for us to spend more time addressing.
Finally, she spoke about Title 42. She said:
Title 42 is a public health — is a public health requirement, a public hea- — because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, which, by the way we would have made progress on had the former President actually addressed the pandemic and not suggested people inject bleach.
She concluded her answer by saying, “People would be pretty hard pressed to argue that the President has taken any aspect of the former President’s playbook and used it as a model of his own.”
Psaki neglected to answer the reporter’s questions about tariffs on China.
Watch the video here —
The Horn editorial team