President Joe Biden isn’t the only member of his new regime who can get tough with women, if you believe former Senate staffer Tara Reade’s story about Biden’s sex assault three decades ago.
In January, Deputy Press Secretary T.J. Ducklo angrily threatened a woman reporter from Politico because she was writing a story about Ducklo and his main squeeze, Axios’ Alexi McCammond. When Politico’s Tara Palmeri began asking questions, Ducklo exploded, Vanity Fair reported on Friday.
Aside from dropping an F-bomb, he threatened to “destroy her.”
After VF exposed the story, the White House suspended him without pay. On Saturday, the angry PR man “resigned.”
But the Ducklo story is important not because a second-tier, unknown staffer was either told to resign or quit out of embarrassment. It’s important because it proves yet again that if the Left didn’t have double standards, it would have no standards at all.
The suspension betrayed Biden’s solemn vow to fire anyone who speaks that way “on the spot.” Well, “on the spot” was three weeks ago.
First People, Then Politico
Though People and Politico published stories this week, the trouble for Ducklo began January 20, the day the new regime took power.
People disclosed the Ducklo-McCammond affair before Politico, but “behind the scenes, Ducklo had previously lashed out at” Palmeri, “exhibiting behavior that led to tense meetings between the Washington news outlet’s editors and senior White House officials,” VF reported:
The confrontation began on Inauguration Day, January 20, after Palmeri, a coauthor of Politico’s Playbook, contacted McCammond for comment while one of her male colleagues left a message for Ducklo, according to the sources. Ducklo subsequently called a Playbook editor to object to the story, but was told to call the Playbook reporters with his concerns. But instead of calling the male reporter who initially contacted him, Ducklo tried to intimidate Palmeri by phone in an effort to kill the story. “I will destroy you,” Ducklo told her, according to the sources, adding that he would ruin her reputation if she published it.
But that wasn’t all. Ducklo was furious. He made “derogatory and misogynistic comments, accusing Palmeri of only reporting on his relationship … because she was ‘jealous’ that an unidentified man in the past had “wanted to f**k” McCammond ‘and not you.’”
After Ducklo attacked Palmeri, a Politico bigwig “reached out” to the White House.
That led to “multiple conversations between the news outlet and senior-level officials on January 21, including White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, and Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn,” VF reported.
They said Ducklo’s threats were “inappropriate,” as VF put it, and forced him to write a personal apology.
But of course, the White House had to attack Palmeri, too:
In another conversation, the same White House officials took aim at Palmeri by accusing her of breaking an off-the-record agreement with Ducklo and pressing Politico as to why the contents of the call had been revealed. Palmeri had only informed her editors of the contents of the call, which she had transcribed into her notes as it was happening, after they asked her about it….
When the series of calls between the White House and Politico had concluded, Ducklo sent Palmeri an email stating that he was sorry he lost his cool, but he did not delve into any specifics or apologize for threatening and sexually harassing the reporter, according to sources familiar with the exchange.
“Last night on the phone with you I lost my temper in a way that was unprofessional, and I apologize for that,” Ducklo wrote. “I should have done a better job at keeping my emotions in check during our conversation. It won’t happen again.”
The White House suspended Ducklo for a week without pay about three weeks after he lost his cool. And again, that was only after the magazine inquired. That response “raises serious questions about behavior that is tolerated in the Biden White House,” VF observed.
On his first day in office, Biden issued this warning: “I am not joking when I say this: If you are ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
But neither Biden nor his underlings fired Ducklo “on the spot,” possibly because he has Stage 4 lung cancer.
Ducklo saved them the trouble.
“No words can express my regret, my embarrassment, and my disgust for my behavior. I used language that no woman should ever have to hear from anyone, especially in a situation where she was just trying to do her job. It was language that was abhorrent, disrespectful, and unacceptable,” Ducklo wrote.
Now, if only Joe Biden would follow Ducklo’s example and, at the least, apologize to Tara Reade.
