In a White House press briefing on Thursday, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany got into a heated exchange with a reporter who continuously interrupted her while she was answering questions.
Heated exchange
During the briefing, CBS reporter Paula Reid asked several questions about whether or not the White House agrees to the idea that racially motivated violent extremism is a legitimate threat to the country and what the administration plans to respond with.
According to Fox News, the reporter repeatedly interrupted the press secretary in the middle of her answers, which prompted McEnany to fire back. She told Reid to let her speak and noted they were not having a debate, and she should let her finish her statements.
Later on, McEnany argued that despite the multiple times the media had criticized United States President Donald Trump for his frequent interruption of Joe Biden during their debate, they are also exercising the same conduct. She noted when reporters ask her a question; they should let her answer.
However, Reid and CBS did not particularly seem to be affected by the aggressive statements and later posted a video of the exchange between the two on social media.
Members of the media and several prominent Democrats have called for changes to the debate format two days earlier after the incident during the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden.
Journalist Jake Tapper of CNN considered the presidential debate to be the worst he has ever seen and noted he could not even say it was a debate, calling it a "disgrace." He pointed out that the bulk of the responsibility for the disappointing event was because of Trump and his continuous interruptions.
The journalist noted that Trump was very rude during the debate because he was not abiding by the rules and standards of decency and said it was "frankly embarrassing."
A similar aggressive stance
The dispute with the CBS reporter was not the first time that McEnany experienced heated tensions during a briefing. Previously, another reporter asked about President Trump's claims that some mail-in ballots were recently discovered thrown into a river, as reported by Yahoo News.
The reporter continuously asked where the river where the ballots were supposedly found is located. He also asked who the "they" were when Trump said officials found the ballots. McEnany corrected that what Trump meant was a ditch rather a river and that the "they" he was referring to were the local authorities.
During the exchange, the journalist argued he only wanted to relay news accurately and argued if the U.S. president meant the ballots were found in a ditch, he should have said it was a ditch and not a river.
However, McEnany proceeded to criticize the reporter for allegedly missing the point of the problem. She added that last week in Pennsylvania, several ballots were found inside a ditch. The press secretary noted that seven military ballots that were allegedly marked for Trump were found discarded in Wisconsin.
Secretary McEnany has continued to support Trump's claims that mail-in ballot voting is problematic and could result in election fraud.
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