Two things that will never ever change.

1) Every Democrat who ever uttered the words “Defund the police” should be relieved of their position. No doubt whatsoever that massive changes are needed in American policing, a complete overhaul. But “Defund the Police” was perhaps the biggest gift ever granted the Republicans and likely made the election closer than it needed to be.

2) Another thing that will never change, Doocy will never beat Psaki one on one in the press room.

Today, Doocy went back to the well on who is defunding the police, the very few Democrats who talked about it, or the Republicans who voted against money to go to the police.

We pick up the conversation mid-round:

DOOCY: You mentioned at the last briefing that you think Republicans wanted to defund the police because they did not support the American Rescue Plan. Which Republican ever said that they did not like the American Rescue Plan because they wanted to defund the police?

PSAKI: Well, first let me just note that the president ran and won the most votes of any candidate in history on a platform of boosting funding for law enforcement. Republicans spent decades trying to cut the COPS program. There’s record of that. That doesn’t require anyone having new comments. And then also stood in the way of crucial funding needed to prevent the laying off of police officers as crimes increased. That’s a simple statement of fact.

DOOCY: I understand what you’re saying there, however, there are lots of examples of Democrats explicitly saying they want to defund the police. You’ve got Congresswoman Cori Bush, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, are there any examples of Republican members of Congress saying they want to defund the police?

PSAKI: I think most people would argue that actions are more important than words, wouldn’t you say? 

Let us cut in here to answer: “Yes”

DOOCY: Well to that point there, at the time of the vote on the American Rescue Plan, you had Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell said he just didn’t like it because he thought that was a classic example of big government Democratic overreach in the name of Covid relief, and then Kevin McCarthy said he thought Democrats were using coronavirus as an excuse to justify funding pet projects. Where is the “we’re going to vote against this because we want to define the police?”

And yet the Democrats included the money, didn’t they, Peter? So it wasn’t ALL pet projects, there was a lot of money for cops because Democrats care about policing, not “defunding policing.” We just want policing overhauled.

Jen said it better:

PSAKI: Again, I think actions speak louder than words, Peter, so if you oppose funding for the COPS program, something that was dramatically cut by their prior administration and many Republicans supported, and then you vote against the bill that has funding for the COPS program, we can let other people evaluate than what that means. It doesn’t require them to speak to it or to shout it out, their actions speak for themselves.

If Peter doesn’t get a little better at some “Yes or No” questions, ones that don’t let Psaki hogtie him in White House-speak, he’s going to find himself defunded by Fox. He really hasn’t learned a thing with respect to how to ask Psaki tough questions. There are ways to get around her answers in follow-ups (not that we’re about to give him hints) but he just cannot seem to do it.

Until then, another day, another Psaki victory.

Psaki: Again, I think actions speak louder than words Peter… pic.twitter.com/m36LSwYZ4f

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 30, 2021

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