White House press secretary Jen Psaki publicly rebuked her deputy Friday for making inappropriate comments to a female reporter on the day of the inauguration.
Vanity Fair reported Friday that deputy White House press secretary TJ Ducklo had threatened to “destroy” Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, who inquired about his relationship with Axios reporter Alexi McCammond. McCammond had covered Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, and romantic relationships between reporters and their sources may raise ethical concerns.
In the off-the-record phone call, Ducklo reportedly made misogynistic comments to Palmeri, accusing her of being “ jealous ” that another man wanted to fuck “ McCammond ” and not Palmeri, according to Vanity Fair. The magazine also reported that Ducklo said to Palmeri, “I will destroy you” if she continued with the story. It also took note that a male Politico reporter had been assigned to ask Ducklo about the relationship, while Palmeri approached McCammond. Instead of reaching out to the male reporter, Ducklo reached out to Palmeri, according to Vanity Fair.
Psaki admitted on Friday that this conversation fell short of “the president’s standard of conduct.” That standard was voiced by President Biden on his first day in office, apparently just around the time Ducklo threatened Palmeri.
“I’m not kidding when I say this. If you ever work with me, and I hear you treat another coworker disrespectfully, talk to someone down and I promise I’ll fire you right there,” Mr. Biden said . ‘On the spot. No ifs, ones or buts. Everyone, everyone has the right to be treated decently and with dignity. ‘
It’s unclear why it took more than three weeks for the White House to discipline Ducklo.
CBS News has not been able to independently verify the phone call, but the conversation three weeks ago led to a series of moves by the White House communications bureau, two people familiar with the situation told CBS News.
The next day, January 21, when Mr. Biden issued a series of executive orders, top White House adviser Anita Dunn, communications director Kate Bedingfield and Psaki spent part of the day on the phone with Palmeri’s bosses at Politico and acknowledged that some Ducklo was not acceptable. They promised he would apologize, the two people familiar with the discussion said.
After that, “Ducklo Palmeri sent an email saying he was sorry he was losing his cool, but he did not go into details or apologize for threatening and sexually harassing the reporter,” Vanity Fair reported.
White House officials complained to Politico’s leadership that Palmeri had not honored her off-the-record agreement with Ducklo because she discussed the conversation with her editors, according to a source familiar with the situation. But being “off the record” is an agreement between a reporter and the source that information from the conversation may not be published. Politico kept that agreement.
The day after the tense phone call, Palmeri and her colleagues were scheduled to live stream an interview with Cedric Richmond, senior adviser to the White House. That event was announced on January 19.
According to emails from CBS News sent the morning of the event, Politico asked if Palmeri could interview Richmond along with one of her colleagues, Ryan Lizza.
“Let’s just do Ryan,” replied Kate Berner, the White House deputy director of communications, adding that the White House had previously agreed to have only one moderator – Lizza.
The video of the event shows that Politico continued the live stream without Palmeri as the interviewer or on the panel, even though Palmeri was listed as a panelist in the event announcement.
Palmeri declined to comment, referring the request to Politico, who delivered a statement from the chief editors, saying in part, “No journalist at POLITICO – or any other publication or network – should ever be subjected to such unfounded personal attacks while his does work. “
Another person familiar with the circumstances said that Palmeri was dropped from the virtual event because she unexpectedly got stuck in traffic and that her absence was unrelated to the fallout from the exchange with Ducklo the day before.
The first story about Ducklo’s relationship was not published by Politico, but earlier this week, on Monday evening, by People Magazine. Many White House executives shared the article on social media.
Less than 12 hours later, Politico Playbook reported that the People Magazine story was published after Politico notified the White House of his intention to publish a story about Ducklo’s relationship.
An Axios spokesperson told CBS News that McCammond disclosed her relationship with Ducklo to her editors in November, asking for coverage of the Biden campaign to be removed. She was then reassigned to cover then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the progressive movement and progressives in Congress.
“Alexi is a valued member of the Axios team,” said the Axios spokesperson, “and we stand by her and her reporting.”
Ducklo will serve an unpaid suspension of one week and will no longer partner with Politico reporters, according to Psaki.
The press secretary described the threatening phone call as a “heated conversation about [Ducklo’s] personal life, “and said Ducklo has since apologized to Palmeri. CBS News’ Weijia Jiang urged Psaki during the White House briefing on why this disciplinary action was taken weeks after the incident – and after publication of the story of the threats. Psaki simply replied, “You’re right.”
“There were talks with the reporter, as well as with editors at Politico immediately after the talk took place,” Psaki said. ‘That’s how we treated ourselves privately. And, you know, that was what we thought was appropriate at the time. ‘
Psaki said Friday that Mr. Biden was not involved in the discussion and that the week-long suspension was approved by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.