'Bad faith my a**': Brit Hume defends Fox News reporter challenging Joe Biden on contradictory pandemic messages
Veteran Fox News journalist Brit Hume slapped down criticism against his colleague after he challenged President Joe Biden about his contradictory messaging on the coronavirus pandemic.
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden in a media briefing Monday to explain why his messaging had so drastically changed after the election.
"So you just said that you think, that within three weeks or so, we'll be at the point where there are a million vaccines per day," Doocy said, "but it seems like..."
"No I think we'll get there before that," interrupted Biden, "I misspoke, I hope we'll able to increase as we go along, until we get to the million five [thousand] a day, that's my expectation, my hope."
"And then, the followup to that would be, alright, now that you're president and you're saying, 'There's nothing we can do to change the trajectory in the next several months,'" Doocy continued. "What happened to two months ago when you were talking declaratively, about, 'I am going to shut down the virus'?"
"Well I am gonna shut down the virus, I never said I would do it in two months!" Biden responded.
"I said it took a long time to get here, it will take a long time to beat it," he explained. "And so we have millions of people out there who have the virus."
Doocy faced some critics on social media who didn't like his question and accused him of acting in bad faith.
"Bad faith my a**," Hume responded.
Bad faith my a**. It led to Biden acknowledging that he misspoke, then proceeding to raise his oft-repeated vaccina… https://t.co/KJFKQdqVoY— Brit Hume (@Brit Hume)1611616572.0
"It led to Biden acknowledging that he misspoke, then proceeding to raise his oft-repeated vaccination goal of 100 million after it had become clear we were already on the way to achieving that when he took office," he added. "So much for @PDoocy being there 'wasting time.'"
Hume was referring to a controversy surrounding a promise Biden made to vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his presidency. Some noted that the goal was already likely to be met under the rate of vaccinations achieved by the former Trump administration.
The Biden administration has also faced steep criticism for baseless accusations made against the previous administration. CNN ran with quotes from anonymous sources inside the administration claiming there was no system at all for implementing vaccines, but that claim was immediately disputed by none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to Biden.
Here's the interaction between Doocy and Biden:
Fox News' Peter Doocy grills Biden over his vaccine plan, messaging on COVIDwww.youtube.com