The White House on Friday suspended a press collaborator who reportedly threatened to “destroy” a journalist working on a story about his relationship with another journalist.
Deputy Press Secretary TJ Ducklo was suspended for a week, without pay, after Vanity Fair reported that he told Tara Palmeri of Politico that he would “destroy” her for writing about her relationship with Axios reporter Alexi McCammond.
Vanity Fair reported Friday that in a conversation with Palmeri, who previously covered the White House as an ABC News correspondent, Ducklo had “made derogatory and misogynistic comments,” including the accusation of “jealousy” of their relationship. “I will destroy you,” he told Palmeri, according to the magazine, citing anonymous sources.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Ducklo’s suspension on Friday, after the Vanity Fair play was released, and considered Ducklo’s behavior “completely unacceptable.”
During a press conference on Friday, Psaki did not discuss any of the allegations reported by the magazine, nor when she was later asked by ABC News. He told reporters that White House communications director Kate Bedingfield had apologized to a Politico editor “immediately after” the Ducklo-Palmeri conversation.
Palmeri declined to comment. Politico editor-in-chief Matt Kaminski and editor Carrie Budoff Brown said in a statement that “they had raised our concerns about the incident directly with the White House at the time.”
“No Politico journalist, or any other publication or network, should be subjected to such unfounded personal attacks while doing their job,” they said. “Politico journalists and editors are committed to establishing a professional and transparent relationship with public office holders and their staff and expect the same in return.”
Politico wrote Tuesday morning about Ducklo dating McCammond and how his employer, Axios, had handled the ethically thorny relationship.
The piece followed a flattering article about the relationship published the night before by People with the headline: “Reporter resigns to cover president as romance flourishes with Biden Aide fighting cancer.” Ducklo has received treatment for lung cancer and several of his White House colleagues shared the story on Twitter.
His first day in office, President Joe Biden set a high standard for his employees while swearing at them.
“I don’t joke when I say that,” Biden said. “If you ever work with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk to someone, I promise I’ll fire you right away, on the spot. There’s no, if not, if not. If everyone … everyone he has the right to be treated with dignity and dignity. “
Psaki told reporters that he had made the decision to punish Ducklo – with the approval of White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain – and that he had not discussed it with Biden. She called it a “significant step,” saying, “I take it very seriously.”
Ducklo, whose duties include consulting with journalists on COVID-19, health care and politics, had apologized to Palmeri “shortly after making the comments” and again in writing, “Psaki said. to say he would not be assigned to work again with Politico journalists.
“He had a heated conversation about a story related to his personal life,” Psaki said. “I’m not saying that’s acceptable, but I just want to be clear that it wasn’t an issue related to White House or White House policy, or anything like that. He’s the first to acknowledge that this isn’t the standard of conduct set by the president, nor the standard of conduct set by me, and I am his direct supervisor. “
A reporter pointed out to Psaki that the White House had known about the interaction for weeks, but had only suspended Ducklo after Vanity Fair reported it. He said the journalist was “right”, but noted that the White House had believed it was “appropriate at the time” to relate privately to Politico “immediately after the conversation”.
Asked how the one-week suspension behaved with Biden’s first-day threat, Psaki would only say that Ducklo’s behavior “does not meet the president’s standards.”
“It was important to take a step to make that clear,” he said. “And that included not only apologizing directly from him, nor apologizing directly from us at the highest levels, but also a step to suspend him for a week without pay. And that, in our view, was an important step in sending the message we do not find acceptable “.