Katie reported last month that White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki planned to make her exit in about a year's time. She's already changed her tune, though, as indicated by remarks she made during a conference held by The Financial Times.
During a Thursday closing keynote speech, FT's editor Roula Khalaf brought up Psaki's own remarks that she planned to stay for a year or about that, and asked the press secretary if that was still the case.
"I am far from, I think, this has been a little bungled out there walking out the door on day 365 at all. And I have flexibility, and I can stay longer and likely will stay longer," she answered. "But I think being a part of this period of time, lifting up future people, and also remembering for myself that I have little kids and I don't want to miss moments are all factors for me even though this is an incredible job and an incredible place to be a part of."
Last month, however, Psaki told David Axelrod during an interview for "The Axe Files" a different timeline.
"When I talked to the inner circle of the Biden orbit about this, we talked about coming in and doing this job for a year and which was quite appealing to me for many reasons," she said. "I think it’s going to be time for somebody else to have this job, in a year from now or about a year from now."
Perhaps the biggest takeaway, though, is how much President Joe Biden is handled by his staff. Psaki took something of an issue with Khalaf pointing out that Biden took so long before he had his first press conference, calling it "what's funny." She also claimed that Biden "actually enjoys that back and forth and takes questions I think more than almost most presidents in modern history in terms of the frequency of how often he takes questions from reporters."
Such a response stands in stark contrast to what Katie reported on today, however. "I'm sorry, I'm going to get in trouble with staff if I don’t do this the right way," President Biden said during his G7 press conference on Sunday. "I'm going to get in trouble with my pre...my staff. Yeah, go ahead. But pretend that I didn't answer you."
Further, in the same interview referenced above with Axelrod, Psaki claimed, "That is not something we recommend," when it comes to Biden taking questions. "In fact, a lot of times we say 'don't take questions,'" Psaki said. "But he's going to do what he wants to do because he's the president of the United States."
Psaki had also told Khalaf that "sometimes the president often asks me, 'what are the reporters asking about today?' And he asks me that because he wants to know how things are being digested out there in the public. To him, it's a prism to the outside world." Former President Donald Trump would not need to ask such a question because he would just go speak to reporters himself.
With spin like that, the Biden administration should hope that Psaki stays on for many more months to come.
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