Jen Psaki Blasted for What She Did with John Kerry During MSNBC Interview
In February, when MSNBC announced it was giving Jen Psaki her own weekend show on the network, even The New York Times had some subtextual reservations about the move in an otherwise fawning profile of the former White House press secretary.
The outlet said it would be an “hourlong program on a Biden-friendly network” where she’d be “mixing policy and political discussions with lighter fare like human-interest profiles of politicians, celebrities and athletes.”
However, Psaki was adamant she was no shill: While President Joe Biden’s former spokeswoman told the Times she was “not going to gratuitously attack him” on her show, she insisted “I am not going on television to be a mouthpiece” for the administration.
And now that she’s interviewed White House climate czar John Kerry, we can say definitively she isn’t going to be a mouthpiece for the administration. Instead, she’s going to be an ice-cream-piece. Or a hug-piece. But definitely not a mouthpiece.
So, for those of you who missed Psaki’s interview with Kerry on Sunday and plan to circle back to it when you get to your DVR, spoiler alert: It began with a hug and ended with the two of them eating ice cream on the National Mall in Washington. But not a mouthpiece.
According to a blurb on MSNBC’s website, Kerry was there “for a conversation on climate change and the progress that has been made in restoring credibility on climate post-Trump.”
“We’ve made great progress in restoring credibility. But we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’re just not at the pace, size, scope and scale we need to be to meet the goal of keeping the earth’s temperature increase limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
And do you know what a hard-hitting journalist does when interviewing someone who wants semi-surreptitiously forced austerity — including in matters of food, particularly beef and dairy — as a panacea for anthropogenic climate change?
Get ice cream, of course!
First off, what is it with Biden administration officials and ice cream as a point of relatability? First it’s the president, now John Kerry?
And here goes the Biden admin doing ice cream commercials again.
— Mike Sperrazza (@MikeASperrazza) April 23, 2023
And then, of course, there’s the hypocrisy here. They both went with the Dove Bar, which Psaki called the “State Department special.” (Once upon a time, back when Kerry was Barack Obama’s secretary of State, Psaki was the State Department’s head spokeswoman. Neither did a terribly good job in either role, only one seems to have fallen upward.)
Now, according to the company website, a Dove chocolate-covered ice cream bar contains, among other things, skim milk, cream, cocoa butter and chocolate.
Two of those, of course, come from bovines — the cow in the cow-fart element that Green New Dealers were so adamant about getting rid of.
Cocoa beans — responsible for cocoa butter and chocolate — don’t typically grow in the United States and would need to be imported, which means significant transportation costs.
These ingredients are then made into a Dove Bar, kept at a frozen temperature and transported everywhere, which naturally takes up a significant amount of energy — which means carbon.
But then again, two chocolate bars on the Capital Mall are hardly anything on Kerry’s private jet usage. Which, you might not be surprised to learn, Psaki didn’t ask Kerry about during their “conversation on climate change and the progress that has been made in restoring credibility on climate post-Trump.” Because of course not.
I hope that is ice cream made from bugs and not cows.
— Creature of Habit2 (@CreatureHabit2) April 23, 2023
As everyone else noted, this was a whole lot of mouthpiecery from someone who swore she wasn’t going to be a Biden administration mouthpiece.
“Journalism” at its finest! 🤬
— Pat Vesperman 🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@patves) April 23, 2023
🤣😂🤣😂 Kerry’s trying to stay relevant. And, Jen’s trying to be relevant. Both are jokes!
— Abby Kate – I love this Country! (@CathyPe63220996) April 23, 2023
These “tough” questions sound easy enough for even Joe to answer! 😂
— Lionesses of Iron (@lionessesofiron) April 23, 2023
So, no, it wasn’t a “conversation on climate change and the progress that has been made in restoring credibility on climate post-Trump.”
In fact, the only meter-moving that happened in terms of credibility was a significant tick downward when it comes to Psaki’s journalistic bona fides.
But don’t worry. This is MSNBC, after all — and this is just the kind of pap it expected. Rest assured, she’ll be circling back for another scintillating episode of acting as a private-sector mouthpiece for the administration next week, same Biden-time, same Biden-channel.
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