Jen Psaki, who previously served as the White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden, recently commended her former adversary, Peter Doocy, a well-known Fox News journalist. This rare acknowledgment came after Doocy posed a series of tough questions during Karoline Leavitt’s briefing on Thursday.

Currently a host on MS NOW, Psaki expressed her appreciation for Doocy’s intense questioning of Leavitt regarding the administration’s increasing measures against Venezuela.

On Wednesday, the U.S. government seized a crude oil tanker, alleging it was used for transporting oil that was sanctioned from Venezuela and Iran, according to a statement from the White House.

During the briefing, Doocy challenged Leavitt, aged 28, by questioning whether these operations were primarily concerned with ‘drugs’ or ‘oil’.

This seizure followed a contentious U.S. airstrike in September targeting a Venezuelan vessel suspected of drug trafficking.

Psaki, 47, smiled after showing footage of the exchange at the top of her show, The Briefing. 

She praised her ‘old buddy’ Doocy, 38, for asking ‘a good question’ and slammed Leavitt’s explanation that the administration was ‘focused on doing many things’ in the region.

An incredulous Psaki reacted: ‘“Many things,” they say. So, one day it’s about the drugs. The next day can be about the oil. I mean, who knows?’

Former Joe Biden White House Press Secretary and current press secretary Jen Psaki offered some rare praise to her old nemesis, Fox News Senior White House Press Secretary Peter Doocy, on her show, The Briefing, on Thursday

Shortly before, Doocy – once a thorn in Psaki’s side – grilled Leavitt about the US’s endgame amid their escalation action against Venezuela

‘But not to worry, because often when these questions are asked and they’re not satisfied with the answer, they ask them again,’ she said, before proudly playing a clip of Doocy asking the same question yet again – this time to Trump later on at the White House.  

‘Well, it’s about a lot of things,’ Trump answered after signing an unrelated executive order.

‘But one of the things it’s about is the fact that [Venezuela has] allowed millions of people to come into our country from their prisons.’

Psaki – who frequently sparred with Doocy before being replaced by Karine Jean-Pierre – again imitated: ‘”It’s about a lot of things.”

‘So just to recap, they told us first, it’s about drugs and it might be about oil. And now, according to Trump, it’s apparently about millions of people from Venezuelan prisons – which is completely baseless, by the way. 

‘So, we can’t get any coherent reasoning behind a possible war in our own hemisphere.’

Doocy meanwhile, asked Leavitt about recent military operations targeting Venezuela repeatedly.

‘The president is committed to stopping the illegal flow of drugs into our country. He’s also fully committed to effectuating this administration’s sanction policy, and that’s what you saw and the world saw take place yesterday,’ Leavitt maintained.

On Wednesday, US forces seized a crude oil tanker that the White House said was ‘used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran’

The seizure comes as the administration has launched a series of strikes since early September, including one on September 2 (seen here) that has surfaced as controversial

Leavitt eventually told the reporter: ‘With respect to any additional action in Venezuela, I’m definitely not gonna get ahead of the president or the United States military’

Doocy in return asked whether the seized oil in this case would be used ‘to help Americans with affordability here in the United States’.

Leavitt, the youngest White House press secretary ever, said that ‘the vessel will go to a US port and the United States does intend to seize the oil’. 

‘However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed,’ she added.

‘With respect to any additional action in Venezuela, I’m definitely not gonna get ahead of the president or the United States military.’  

The strike in September was the first to target an alleged cartel boat said to be smuggling drugs toward the United States.

New details about the strike emerged last week, after a source familiar with the incident revealed the initial strike on the boat left two survivors alive.

The two were killed by a follow-up strike while attempting to get back into the boat, the source said.

MS NOW, meanwhile, rebranded from its old name, MSNBC, last month. Psaki joined after leaving the Biden administration in May 2022.