White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dumped out of a contentious exchange with New York Post reporter Steven Nelson by telling him “I think we’re done!”

Psaki briefed reporters on Monday with a hard deadline that left only about 25 minutes for her to take questions. But that didn’t stop Nelson from taking 3 different shots at the same question about a Vanity Fair report on Covid testing, as well as a follow-up about President Joe Biden’s travel to his Wilmington home.

“I’m kind of amazed hasn’t been brought up more in this group,” Nelson began, and then described a VF report about “a Zoom meeting with administration officials” in October, during which a proposal to”mass distribute coronavirus tests to homes before Christmas to prevent a winter surge of COVID 19 cases,” a plan that was rejected at the time.

Nelson wanted to know “which administration officials attended the October 22nd meeting,” and “was President Biden personally briefed at the time on that recommendation before it was passed over?”

“Well, maybe people haven’t asked about it because we’ve done a lot of what was discussed in that meeting that happened a couple of months ago, including massively expanding our testing program and capacity,” Psaki said.

“And the issue at the time, which is a very small part of the conversation, was that the market had not expanded enough to, at that moment in time, be able to launch the website we’re launching tomorrow,” Psaki added.

Psaki went on to say that the Covid team “members who participated saw that as a very constructive meaning good meeting, a lot of which we’ve worked to implement.”

Nelson tried again, asking “How can President Biden shut down the virus if he’s, you know, not being briefed on these ideas? I mean, that’s my question. So I’m wondering who were the advisers and was President Biden briefed on this idea at the time?”

“I think I just answered your question, which you may not have been listening,” Psaki said, snarking that “Maybe you were waiting to read your next question, which is fine, but I just answered your question.”

Above Nelson’s protests, Psaki said “Let me finish. Let me finish, Steven. Steven, I’m finishing.”

“What I said to you just a minute ago is that we did not have the capacity at the moment,” Psaki explained. “We had a very constructive meeting with this group. We agreed on the need to expand our testing capacity. That’s why we doubled the size of our testing capacity and why the president had already used the Defense Production Act to invest $3 billion. But the market did not have the capacity at that moment to do what we’re doing tomorrow.”

Nelson tried again, but Psaki said “I think that answers your question.”

“Again, I’ve answered your question. If you have another one, I’m happy to answer it. Otherwise I’m going to move on to the next person,” Psaki added when Nelson persisted.

Psaki did not, in fact, answer the precise question that Nelson asked, but appeared to be arguing that the facts she did lay out rendered it immaterial.

In December, Psaki derided the idea of sending tests to very home in America, and a few weeks later, Biden told ABC’s David Muir that “I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million tests “two months ago.”

“I’m disappointed that I didn’t get the answers there, but I’ll move on to another one,” Nelson said.

“Great,” Psaki said as Nelson continued.

“The second question is that in light of President Biden’s first year coming to a close, the data indicates that he spent a quarter of his days, at least partially in Delaware. In light of that. Will the White House be reconsidering the decision not to release visitor log information from his Delaware residences?” Nelson asked.

“Well, the president goes to Delaware because it’s his home. It’s also where his son and his former wife are buried. And it’s a place that is obviously close to his heart. A lot of presidents go visit their home when they are president,” Psaki said, possibly in response to some other critics who have raised questions about the president’s travel.

“We also have gone a step further than the prior administration and many administrations in releasing visitor logs of people who visit the White House. And we’ll continue to do that,” Psaki said.

But as Nelson tried to continue, Psaki shut him down by saying “Go ahead in the back. I think we’re done and we’re going to move on! Go ahead in the back.”

Watch above via C-Span.

The post ‘I Think We’re Done!’ Jen Psaki Shoots Down NY Post Reporter After Contentious Barrage of Questions first appeared on Mediaite.

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