During a recent episode of her show on MS NOW, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki extended unexpected praise to her former adversary, Peter Doocy of Fox News. The commendation came after Doocy posed challenging questions to Karoline Leavitt during a press briefing, focusing on the U.S. administration’s increasing interventions in Venezuela. This exchange followed the U.S. seizure of a crude oil tanker, which the White House claimed was involved in transporting sanctioned oil from both Venezuela and Iran.

Doocy, displaying his journalistic tenacity, pressed Leavitt, 28, on whether the operation was primarily about drugs or oil. This query arose shortly after a contentious U.S. airstrike targeted a supposed Venezuelan drug vessel in September. Psaki, now 47, couldn’t hide her amusement while showcasing the footage on her program, The Briefing. She lauded her “old buddy” Doocy, 38, for posing an incisive question and criticized Leavitt’s vague response about the administration’s multifaceted focus in the region.

Psaki expressed her disbelief at Leavitt’s ambiguous explanation: “‘Many things,’ they say. So, one day it’s about the drugs. The next day can be about the oil. I mean, who knows?” She reassured viewers that persistent journalists, unsatisfied with unclear answers, often revisit their questions. She then highlighted a clip of Doocy repeating his inquiry to former President Trump at the White House, to which Trump replied, “Well, it’s about a lot of things,” 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.

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 ‘t he 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.