Jen Psaki was forced to eat her own words, no small feat for the mouthpiece of the White House.
President Joe Biden announced this week that the federal government will send 500 million COVID-19 rapid tests to people who request them, just two weeks after Psaki hooted down the idea.
“Should we just send one to every American?” Psaki scoffed when previously asked whether sending tests to Americans was something the White House had considered. “Then what — then what happens if you — if every American has one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?”
Less than 2 weeks ago, Jen Psaki mocked the idea of sending out COVID tests to every household
Now it’s official Biden policy
— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) December 21, 2021
She walked back that remark, after Biden’s announcement.
“I would say there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t leave this podium and wish I would have said something with greater context or more precision or additional information,” Psaki said when asked about her old comments.
“And that day, there was a lot of good questioning on testing,” she rambled, “and during that briefing, I conveyed a lot of information about our expansion of testing, about the 15 million tests that we were making available, about the 20,000 free testing sites.
“Should I have included that additional context again and that answer? Yes,” she admitted. “Going back, I wish I would have done that.”
Critics have slammed the Biden administration for not making at-home COVID-19 tests more available. The Food and Drug Administration has approved only 12 at-home tests, while more than 3,000 emergency use authorization applications for other kinds of at-home tests remain trapped in the agency.
