New White House press secretary appeared to totally flub a question today when she refused to say if President Biden believes that China’s treatment of the Muslim Uighur population is genocide.
For the record, President Biden’s own Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinke did say it’s genocide, agreeing with the Trump administration’s last-minute declaration:
.@PressSec won’t say President Biden believes China’s treatment of the Uighurs was a “genocide.” Psaki doesn’t seem aware Blinken testified it is a genocide during his confirmation hearing. White House should clean up this confusion soonest.
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 22, 2021
She really does need to clean this up:
Beijing is trying to get the Biden team to make concessions up front. Blinken and the NSC get this. Psaki didn’t get the memo apparently. This is probably an innocent mistake not a policy change. But a mistake that needs to be corrected. https://t.co/mkXRMJ5EaM
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 22, 2021
Because this really is something we can celebrate as “unity”:
This would be a terrible reversal of U.S. policy that shares bipartisan support. https://t.co/u3JpwCrUAn
— Alyssa Farah (@Alyssafarah) January 22, 2021
Who knew press secretaries got a honeymoon period?
Jen Psaki refused to say whether the Biden admin would continue acknowledging that China is committing a genocide seemingly unaware that their Secretary of State nominee said the other day in his hearing that he agreed with that assessment.
She's definitely no Kayleigh
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 22, 2021
But she did nail the question on AF1’s paint job, though:
Josh, we're talking about the paint job on Air Force One right now. Thanks. https://t.co/mtVXQ1wq4S
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 22, 2021
And this isn’t even new. His campaign has been speaking about this since at least August:
Biden's campaign spox in August: 'The unspeakable oppression that Uighurs and other ethnic minorities have suffered at the hands of China’s authoritarian government is genocide and Joe Biden stands against it in the strongest terms.' https://t.co/0JnDufkd0C https://t.co/pMk0SQiQjV
— Casey Michel ?? (@cjcmichel) January 22, 2021
Watch the exchange here:
.@PressSec Jen Psaki dodged a question on whether @JoeBiden would recognize China’s treatment of the Uighurs as a “genocide.”
Will Biden downplay China’s human rights issues by telling Xi to “make your decisions” again, like he did in 2015? https://t.co/tn0zJAgHDR pic.twitter.com/6J1DCg8HzR
— Investigative Research Center (@InvestigativeRC) January 22, 2021
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