During Monday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki attempted to distance President Joe Biden from MLB’s decision to pull the All-Star game out of Atlanta:
Under questioning from Peter Doocy, Jen Psaki refuses to admit that Biden's support for MLB moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta was a way of the White House putting their thumbs on the scales.
She also refused to comment on the loss of $100M from Cobb County. Go figure. pic.twitter.com/4i1bW0gWOC
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 5, 2021
She argued that MLB acted on its own and that their decision had nothing to do with what Biden had said publicly. Transcript here:
Q I also wanted to ask you a question about Major League Baseball. The League decided to move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta. That’s something that the President said he supported before. Does he then agree with their decision to move that game out of Atlanta because of the voting law?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I wish I had had this with me on Friday because I got asked a question, and there’s some help — what I thought would be helpful context. And I know you probably don’t have the transcript in front of you.
So when the President was asked during an ESPN interview last week, he was asked the question: “Last week, Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director said that he would look forward to discussing moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta in the wake of Georgia’s governor signing into law a bill passed by the Republican-led state legislature to overhaul how its state elections are run. How do you view this possibility of moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia?”
And he said, quote, “I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsible. I would strongly support them doing that.”
So he was not dictating for — what Major League Baseball should do, that they should — dictating they should move the All-Star game. That is — was their decision. They made that decision. And as he stated earlier, he certainly supports that.
Q So he does support the decision to move the game then?
MS. PSAKI: Well, he supports them being able to make the decision and respond to what their players ac- — you know, asks are, given many of them are impacted, of course, by these laws.
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Okay, but that’s not the way MLB sees it. As Katie Pavlich points out here, it’s MLB who said they moved the game because of Biden’s comments on the Georgia voting law:
Today Jen Psaki tried to distance President Biden from the MLB decision to pull the All Star game from Georgia, but the MLB website specifically refers to Biden's criticism before the announcement https://t.co/B39xqPN4Ud pic.twitter.com/rxlSNqYOW7
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) April 6, 2021
The RNC spliced together Psaki and Biden’s comments so you can watch for yourself:
Joe Biden's Press Secretary Jen Psaki gaslighted today, falsely claiming that Biden didn’t call for moving the MLB All-Star Game…
Roll the tape! pic.twitter.com/S4MDu1Fs84
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 5, 2021
It also looks like the boycott-happy Biden administration will now have to answer why they’re not calling for Beijing to lose the 2022 Winter Olympics:
.@RealClearNews's @PhilipWegmann asks Jen Psaki if the Biden White House is so adamant about having MLB move its All-Star Game from Georgia because of the voting law, why aren't they calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing?!
Psaki did NOT like this question. pic.twitter.com/1GbTxRsmhC
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 2, 2021
Sen. Rick Scott on Tuesday called for the Games to be moved to the U.S.:
GOP Sen. Rick Scott, in response to the pulled MLB all-star game, wants Biden to "demand the relocation of the 2022 Olympic Games out of Communist China" and offer to host them in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/CAr9P50VXW
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) April 6, 2021
He has a point.
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