White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted regret for a dismissive response she gave on sending at-home test kits to all Americans — the snide crack coming two weeks before President Biden offered up that very solution.
During a press conference before Biden unveiled his testing ramp up Tuesday, Psaki was asked the exchange where she dismissed an NPR reporter’s inquiry about simplifying Biden’s plan to provide 150 million free tests to Americans.
“Should we just send one to every American?” she had snapped when pressed about the process of providing refunds to those who bought tests.
On Tuesday, amid Biden’s plan to offer half-a-billion home test kits to Americans for free Psaki was asked by a CNN reporter if she regretted her tone.
“I would say there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t leave this podium and wish I would have said something with greater context or more precision or additional information,” the spokeswoman said.
“And that day there was a lot of good questioning on testing and during that briefing, I conveyed a lot of information about our expansion of testing, about the 15 million tests that we were making available, about the 20,000 free testing sites. And should I have included that additional context again in that answer? Yes, going back. I wish I would have done that.”
Psaki went on to add that her new attitude came as more resources were available to US residents seeking free tests amid the Omicron variant surge.
“We’re making tests free and accessible without the risk of them going to waste in the home of people who do not want them. So people will go to a website — which again, we will put out there in January when the information is available — and they will be able to request free tests.”