“The White House press briefing room hasn’t been quite the same since Donald Trump left office. No more presidential promotions of dubious covid-19 remedies. No more lectures to the gathered reporters from Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, punctuated by a crisp snap of her binder and a dramatic exit from the podium. But there’s a new miniseries playing out in the briefing room: the daily thrust and parry between Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy and Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki. Doocy, the son of longtime ‘Fox & Friends’ co-host Steve Doocy, tends to come at Psaki with questions from Fox’s ever-lengthening list of culture-war issues.”
“He can be aggressive in his questioning, sometimes interrupting Psaki mid-answer to make another query. The 34-year-old reporter learned his way around Team Biden by covering his presidential campaign last year. Psaki, 42, usually maintains her cool, calmly reciting facts and counterarguments in reply. She often seems to anticipate what Doocy will ask but at times seems mildly exasperated by him. Her tell is sarcasm: ‘Welcome back,’ she said amid scattered laughter last month, after Doocy returned to the briefing room from a brief hiatus and attempted to corner her again. Rather than grumbling about Doocy’s approach – as her predecessors in the Trump administration did when confronted by reporters such as CNN’s Jim Acosta – Psaki has acknowledged that the White House needs Doocy. He is, after all, a conduit to Fox News’s sizable audience, which is unlikely to hear the White House’s side of the story from the network’s opinion hosts and pundits. Psaki seems to recognize that the best way to guarantee a sound bite on Fox – especially about critical vaccine information – is to engage with its reporter. And so the two battle on, amid cheers and jeers from their audience on social media” – Washington Post.