White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted she treats White House reporters in the briefing room as if they are patients in an insane asylum.
“[W]hen reporters are getting really loud, or they’re starting to ask crazy questions, I just slow down my pace, and I talk very quietly, and I treat them like I’m an orderly sometimes in an insane asylum,” she said in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) released Saturday.
The infamous antagonist character Nurse Ratched in the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” used similar tactics to combat the disruptive character played by actor Jack Nicholson.
“Not that they’re people in an insane asylum,” Psaki continued. “But, sometimes, that’s all you have to do to cool yourself down inside.”
Psaki also joked that she used photos of former White House press secretary Sean Spicer participating in the show “Dancing with the Stars” to make her feel better after a bad day.
“Whenever I’m having a low day, I kind of — I have from time to time pulled up that picture of Sean Spicer — the video of him shimmying in that shirt,” she said. “It’s nothing personal. I don’t wish him ill. But that shirt was pretty amazing.”
Psaki gossiped about President Joe Biden’s use of a Peloton exercise bike and even admitted that her use of the phrase “circle back” was “sort of a tic” that she had to work on fixing.
“Sometimes you just have to follow up with them. And that’s OK, too,” she said. “So I actually do do that. But when I am not going to tell them anymore, I say, I don’t have anything more for you on that. So that’s my tip. Use it with boyfriends, whatever. That’s fine.”