Fox News’s Peter Doocy on Friday read a statement out loud from Joe Biden from back in 2005 during a press conference in which he clearly supported the filibuster.
The above comment refers to the fact that Biden just on Thursday did say that the filibuster was “a relic of the Jim Crow era.”
“[The filibuster rule] been abused from the time it came into being by, in an extreme way, in the last 20 years. Let’s deal with the abuse first,” says Biden in the above video of his first and to-date only press conference.
Biden didn’t seem to think so in 2005, when he said, according to Doocy in the first video:
“Altering Senate rules to help one political fight or another could become standard operating procedure, which, in my view, would be a disaster.”
Psaki’s take on the question is yet again different. She mentions that the filibuster was used in the Senate “about 58 times” from 1917 to 1971 (Jim Crow laws were actually enacted in various states as far back as the early 1870’s), whereas “last year, last year alone, uhh, it was used five times that many.”
Doocy then asked about whether getting rid of the filibuster would effectively mean “one-party rule”, and mentioned another comment of Biden’s where he said that, by 2024, “there won’t be a Republican party.”
Psaki once again gave a non-answer, talking about how Biden really wants to “work with the Republicans.” At no time did she confirm or deny Biden’s actual statement.
Doocy also slammed Psaki and Biden for not once calling on Fox News for a question since the presidential campaign:
