Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany put her successor, Jen Psaki, on the spot Monday after she proclaimed that crime is a top concern among voters ahead of the upcoming midterms.
What’s more, the former Trump administration official-turned Fox News personality wondered aloud if Psaki ever told her former boss, President Joe Biden, that very thing when she still had access to him.
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Psaki — who now has a gig with MSNBC — said: “I think that Democrats, if the election is about who is the most extreme, then they’re going to win. If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose. And they know that.”
She added: “Crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats.”
“I would say one of the biggest vulnerabilities. And if you look at Pennsylvania, for example, what’s been interesting to me is it’s always you follow the money, and where people [are] spending money,” Psaki continued.
“And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on the air on crime ads against [Democratic Senate nominee and current Lt. Gov. John] Fetterman because that’s where they see his vulnerability. So, yes, the economy is hanging over everything. But you do have to look at state-by-state factors,” Psaki continued. “And crime is a huge issue in the Pennsylvania race.”
Not surprisingly, Psaki’s replacement, Karine Jean-Pierre, claimed to a reporter that Psaki did not actually say what she actually said, as the Republican National Committee noted.
Here is the clip in which Psaki says — verbatim — that "crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats"pic.twitter.com/g3bqRgWHCy
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 26, 2022
McEnany responded on her show, “Outnumbered.”
“Jen Psaki is exactly right. You don’t hear me say that often, but good for her for giving this really sober, clear-eyed assessment to her party,” she added.
“If it’s a referendum on President Biden, Democrats lose. She went on in that clip to say, ‘A weak kind of Achilles heel for my party is crime.’ “And the immediate question I had was, ‘did you tell your boss that?’” she noted further.
“Because Jen Psaki is not a policymaker, but she does have access to the president, she did have access for a year and a half. She still would, presumably, especially if she had Oval Office walk-in privileges. So I wonder if at any point she said to him, ‘Hey, Mr. President, this is a weak spot for us,'” McEnany said.
“Because we know it took President Biden six months into his presidency to even give an address on crime, to even acknowledge it as an issue. Did she push for that to happen? Because it is now the number four issue among voters,” she said.
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