MS NOW's Jen Psaki had some intense opinions on Thursday evening, as President Donald Trump entertained Chinese President Xi Jinping — and openly fawned over his authoritarian powers.
"What makes all of this so on the nose, so maddeningly ridiculous, is that the event those reporters were denied access to was a greeting ceremony Donald Trump is hosting for the leader of a country with a truly reprehensible record on press freedom and human rights," she said.
As a consequence of this, she continued, "We're not showing you images of this state visit because the pool is not covering these events. But for those of you who don't have the imagination to picture what the meeting looked like, we do have this a colorful description of the communist dictator straight from the president. And here's what he said. Quote, 'I met President Xi at the plane ... and he looked strong, vibrant, and fit better than ever.'"
But Trump didn't stop there, Psaki noted. When the second press spray happened, she said, Trump "made a joke about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps again." And it's this moment, in particular, that left her scandalized.
"I'm going to pause on this for a moment, because Trump praised China's state-run media while he is actively battling to prevent American media from covering his administration," she said.
This matters, she said, "because the prism through which you all of you, everybody receives information about what this White House is doing and tries to hold them accountable is through many of the media who are covering them every day." And China, by contrast, "has a long, long history of suppressing independent media outlets and of keeping independent press from other countries out of these kinds of events."
"It actually prompted a lot of battles through many presidents, Democrats and Republicans, over the course of the last several decades," she added. "And U.S. presidents are supposed to condemn that behavior. They usually do even when they're conducting delicate diplomacy."
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