White House press secretary Josh Earnest got a little tongue-tied Wednesday after being asked what he thought of Donald Trump’s suggestion that teleprompters ought to be outlawed.
Veteran CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller asked him if such a uniform ban would affect the president “adversely.” Since the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has been known for his reliance on tele-prompters to deliver speeches and often rambles without one.
“I don’t have any … well … that’s a tough one to respond to,” Earnest admitted amid some laughter from the White House reporters during Wednesday’s daily briefing.
“I think what I’ll say is … certainly, each of the candidates has an opportunity to choose how they deliver their remarks in public, and people are much more focused not on how they deliver their remarks, but actually the substance of their message,” he finally said.
Knoller then asked about Obama’s statement Monday night at a fundraiser in Nevada that he came back from vacation feeling “feisty.”
“How is that manifesting itself?” Knoller wanted to know, asking specifically if it had anything to do with his remark that he would have to deal with some “crazies” in Congress during fall legislative battles.
Earnest said he wasn’t thinking of the “crazies” but said he believed the president was referring to some new energy he gained during the vacation about “the opportunity that Democrats have, in particular, to regain the majority of the United States Senate.”
