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Jen Psaki hit back at Karoline Leavitt after the White House press secretary accused her at Thursday’s press briefing of being “disrespectful” to Americans of faith for her comments taking Republicans to task for their inaction on gun violence.
Shortly after news broke of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic School that left two children dead and 17 other people injured, Psaki posted on X, “Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”
On Thursday, Leavitt was asked about Psaki’s comments, which the press secretary called “incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works.”
“It’s utterly disrespectful to deride the power of prayer in this country,” Leavitt added.
Hours later, during a recurring segment on “The Briefing” called “Jen’s Version” — in which the former press secretary responds to questions from that day’s White House press briefing — Psaki defended her comments and accused the administration of wasting time on “bad-faith back-and-forth.”
“Prayer is a powerful source of comfort for so many people around the world during difficult times, including me,” Psaki said. “I completely feel that way. And what I said yesterday and will say again now, though, is that prayer alone is not enough to prevent and end the crisis of gun violence in America. It’s not.”
The former Biden administration official called Leavitt’s response a “waste of time” and said she would not remain silent as those in power refuse to act. “So the issue I raised yesterday — and I will raise again today, and I will not stop raising — is that people in power like, say, people in the White House, are using their platforms to do anything other than call for action for sensible gun safety measures.”
Psaki continued, “They’re doing anything but saying what should be done to help prevent tragedies like the shooting in Minneapolis. And because they’re not doing that, frankly, they’re not doing enough, and people shouldn’t accept they’re doing enough.”
The MSNBC host said that “instead of focusing on the bad-faith back-and-forth,” she hoped that questions for Leavitt’s next briefing would include why the administration doesn’t support popular gun control measures such as universal background checks or an assault weapons ban.
“To solve this long epidemic of violence requires action,” Psaki said, before quoting a statement from the Catholic group Sisters of Mercy on the Minneapolis shooting, which read in part, “Our response can no longer be ‘thoughts and prayers’ alone.”
“Even Pope Leo (then a cardinal, I will note) retweeted Sen. Chris Murphy in 2017, saying, ‘Your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers,’” Psaki added.
You can watch Psaki’s full response in the clip at the top of the page.