US president Joe Biden on Monday was caught off guard when he lashed out at Fox News reporter Peter Doocy calling him a ‘son of a b*tch’. Biden was caught making the profanity-laced statement on a hot microphone. But, reporters in the White House are not new to US’ heads of state losing their heads due to the Trump administration’s press briefings – a prime time spectacle for many Americans – where Biden’s predecessor routinely lashed out at reporters.
But Biden and Doocy have history and this is not the first time the Fox reporter got under Biden’s skin albeit the previous altercations did not have profanity-laced comments.
The Fox News reporter and Biden got into a minor altercation in June when US was facing the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and Doocy questioned Biden if vaccinated people needed to wear masks, quoting a statement made by Biden in May where he said that people who are vaccinated can ditch masks at certain settings.
Biden was in the Briefing Room of the White House announcing that either Americans had to get vaccinated or continue with masks and testing. “You said if you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask,” Doocy reminded Biden. “No I didn’t say that. I said if you’re fully vaccinated in an area where you do not have – well, let me clarify that…,” Biden said. That is when Doocy again interrupted him saying, “In May, you made it sound like a vaccine was the ticket to losing the masks forever.”
Biden visibly agitated, as seen in videos shared by Fox News and C-SPAN said that he thought people were going to understand that getting vaccinated made a gigantic difference but a new variant came along and they didn’t get vaccinated. “That was true at the time… It spread more rapidly, and more people were getting sick. That’s the difference,” Biden said. Biden then turned on his heel and left the Briefing Room.
Biden also lashed out at other reporters. He lashed out at news agency CNN’s Kaitlin Collins in June when she asked him why he was confident that Russian president Vladimir Putin would change his behaviour to which Biden lashed out by saying, “I’m not confident he’ll change his behaviour! What the hell? What do you do all of the time? When did I say I was confident?”
Biden apologised to Collins later and did the same with Doocy. Biden called Doocy later on in the day. “It’s nothing personal, pal,” Biden apparently said according to Doocy. “He cleared the air, and I appreciated it. We had a nice call,” Doocy said.
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