The White House thanked one of the most adversarial members of its press corps, Peter Doocy, after the Fox News correspondent acknowledged President Joe Biden was likely tired because he’d been working all night.
“He has been basically working all through the night, the equivalent of an all nighter, Eastern time,” Doocy reported from Vietnam on Sunday, while awaiting a press conference from Biden, who landed in Hanoi after attending the G20 summit in New Delhi, India. “So, he’s probably pretty tired. Pretty jet-lagged.”
“But,” he continued, pausing and appearing momentarily distracted. “He should take at least a handful [of questions].”
Journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip of the moment on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption: “You can see the exact moment when Peter Doocy realizes he just demolished one of his own network’s talking points.”
It had been viewed more than a million times by Monday morning, including, apparently, by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who shared it and wrote: “Thank you, Peter.”
Fox News persistently leans into the “Sleepy Joe” narrative, accusing the president of being too old and tired to do his job.
Several hours after Doocy’s remark, Biden closed out his press conference in Hanoi by telling reporters, “I tell you what, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed,” prompting a predictable response on Fox News.
“He was rambling, near incoherent at some points and then ended the press conference saying he wanted to go to sleep,” host Dagen McDowell said after the presser.
Doocy is known for his combative exchanges with Jean-Pierre in the White House briefing room, and has on several occasions sparred with Biden himself.