It took 23 questions into Friday’s White House press briefing, but CNN’s Kaitlan Collins finally challenged press secretary Jen Psaki on her handling of TJ Ducklo’s sexist tirade threatening Politico’s Tara Palmeri for reporting on his relationship with an Axios reporter. Psaki defended her decision to give Ducklo a slap on the wrist in the form of a one-week suspension.
Psaki argued that Ducklo’s behavior, which, again, constituted the sort of workplace sexual harassment that would get a minimum wage janitor fired from a 7-Eleven, was not “related” to “White House policy.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asks Jen Psaki about the TJ Ducklo’s alleged comments and she decides to reread her statement from this morning before defending him: “I am not saying that is acceptable, but it was not an issue related to the White House or a White House policy.” pic.twitter.com/dGmv79cy4e
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 12, 2021
Really? In the supposedly feminist administration starring the first female vice president, sexually harassing and threatening a female reporter for investigating a legitimate conflict of interest between the White House and a news outlet is not a violation of White House policy? Furthermore, the corollary to the “punishment,” barring Ducklo from working with Politico, is practically more of a punishment to Politico, which now lacks access to the deputy press secretary.
Even more egregious is that this sham of a punishment only came because Vanity Fair’s Caleb Ecarma made Ducklo’s diatribe public. Psaki claimed that Ducklo’s conduct was not “acceptable” and won’t “be tolerated,” and yet, she thought Ducklo apologizing to Palmeri was adequate recourse.
It only took three weeks, and President Biden’s promise to fire any staff member who displayed disrespectful behavior to anyone has already been rendered baseless. If threatening to “destroy” a female journalist for doing her job and sexually harassing her doesn’t constitute a fireable offense or disrespectful behavior, nothing will.
The Capitol is rife with Democratic communications flaks that Biden could summon from a senator’s office. A deputy communications director is easily expendable, and that Ducklo completely melted down under the lightest pressure from a responsible journalist just goes to show that he’s not very good at his job to begin with, regardless of his sexism and temperament. That Psaki has chosen protecting Ducklo as her hill to die on is as much a political failure as a moral one.
