Politics

Jen Psaki laughs off Fox reporter’s bizarre question about conspiracy theory

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds a press briefing on Friday August 6, 2021, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds a press briefing on Friday August 6, 2021, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. Photo: Official White House Photo by Erin Scott

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki laughed off a Fox News reporter’s bizarre claim that it was “suspect” that the power went out at the White House yesterday as President Joe Biden spoke.

Biden was speaking on the North Lawn when all TV networks that were covering his comments lost power, according to Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich. While most adults would accept that technical difficulties sometimes happen and forget about it, she wanted answers from Psaki at the White House press briefing today.

Related: Jen Psaki smacked down rightwing “free crack pipe” misinformation while Lauren Boebert spread it

“This may or may not be related at all,” Heinrich opened, referring to the previous question about Russian cyber attacks, “but is there any information on what caused the power outage on the North Lawn? Every TV network lost power at the same time during the president’s remarks.”

“It was a very inconvenient time, I will just note, for all of you-” Psaki started to respond, smiling.

“The timing was suspect, yes,” Heinrich stated.

“-and for us,” Psaki said, finishing her sentence. “I don’t have any assessment of that, no.” She did not respond to Heinrich’s claim that the timing was “suspect.”

The exchange stood out because the White House press briefing is usually about policy matters or about the president himself, not the state of White House electrical infrastructure.

But Heinrich’s tweet yesterday about the power outage appeared to trigger some conspiracy theorists on the platform, and she may have been referring to them when she called the power outage “suspect.”

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