Psaki: Clip of Me Dismissing Sending out Free COVID Tests: Didn’t Capture ‘Everything I Said’ – We’re Not Sending Tests to ‘Every American’

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “11th Hour,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reacted to a clip of her dismissing the idea of sending free coronavirus tests to all Americans by saying that the clip didn’t capture “everything I said on testing and the rest of the briefing, which I certainly understand. I should’ve added more context in that moment.” And that the administration isn’t sending tests to every American, just to every American who wants a test.

After viewing a clip of her responding to a question on free coronavirus testing by saying, “Should we just send one to every American?” Psaki said, “Well, I said at that time Mehdi, that what I learned and I learn every day is that I always wish I could add more context or say things more clearly. And what you didn’t capture there is everything I said on testing and the rest of the briefing, which I certainly understand. I should’ve added more context in that moment. What we’re doing is we’re sending tests to everybody who wants a test. That is not every American. Because we’re not doing that because that would waste a lot of tests. And we want tests to go to the people that want them. But the good news is is that this program is working. We’re sending tests out more quickly than we thought we would be able to. We weren’t even going to send them out until the end of the month. They’ve already been going out. People are already posting their tests they’re receiving online, that’s great news. And we’re going to — and we ordered an additional 500 million tests so we can keep getting them out to people’s homes.”

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