Watch Scott Jennings Slap Down This Shoddy Talking Point About the Spending Bill
We Have the Long-Awaited News About Who Will Control the Minnesota State House
60 Minutes Reporter Reveals Her Greatest Fear as We Enter a Second Trump...
Wait, Is Joe Biden Even Awake to Sign the New Spending Bill?
NYC Mayor Eric Adams Explains Why He Confronted Suspected UnitedHealthcare Shooter to His...
The Absurd—and Cruel—Myth of a ‘Government Shutdown’
Biden Was Too 'Mentally Fatigued' to Take Call From Top Committee Chair Before...
Who Is Going to Replace JD Vance In the Senate?
'I Have a Confession': CNN Host Makes Long-Overdue Apology
There Are New Details on the Alleged Suspect in Trump Assassination
Doing Some Last Minute Christmas Shopping? Make Sure to Avoid Woke Companies.
Biden Signs Stopgap Bill Into Law Just Hours Before Looming Gov’t Shutdown Deadline
Massive 17,000 Page Report on How the Biden Admin Weaponized the Federal Government...
Trump Hits Biden With Amicus Brief Over the 'Fire Sale' of Border Wall
JK Rowling Marked the Anniversary of When She First Spoke Out Against Transgender...
Tipsheet

Psaki Struggles to Explain Why Biden's Travel Restrictions Aren't 'Xenophobic'

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

In Monday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki struggled to come up with a convincing excuse or explanation for how President Biden's decision to restrict travel from a handful of African countries differed from then-President Trump's restrictions on travel from China.

Advertisement

Asked to explain the clear double-standard, Psaki stumbled her way through an answer that sought to show the difference between Trump's restrictions and Biden's.

"To put it in full context, what the President was critical of was the way that the former president put out, I believe a xenophobic tweet, and what he called the coronavirus and who he directed it at," Psaki argued. "The president has not been critical of travel restrictions, we have put those in place ourselves... in the spring."

Apparently Biden "believes we should follow the advice of health and medical experts and that's exactly what he did in putting in place these restrictions over the weekend," Psaki said. 

So not only are Biden's travel restrictions not xenophobic, according to Psaki's spin, he's never even been critical of travel restrictions.

According to Psaki, Joe Biden isn't being a hypocrite because, when he called Trump a laundry list of insults, it was about Trump's *tweet* and not his travel restrictions as a policy. It just happened by chance that Biden's smear of Trump came the day after Trump restricted travel from China, apparently. 

Advertisement

Sure, Jen. 

At the time the Trump administration limited travel from China to slow the transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus to the United States, Biden slammed the restrictions as "hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering" that, according to now-President Biden, meant Trump was "the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."

Fast forward less than two years and President Biden found himself enacting the same kind of travel restrictions, this time on a handful of countries in southern Africa. 

As Psaki also said during Monday's briefing, the Biden administration's travel restrictions levied against countries in Africa "is not to punish" those countries, but "to protect the American people" by delaying the new variant's arrival in the United States to buy time necessary to learn more about its transmissibility and how it affects people. 

Advertisement

That explanation from Psaki sounds an awful lot like President Trump and his administration's explanation of its travel restrictions against China as the Wuhan coronavirus began its spread across the globe. But of course according to the Democrats' logic, they can condemn Republicans for taking an action only to turn around and do the same while claiming they're beyond reproach. 

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement