In this video, veteran reporter Matt Lee asks Ned Price (profile here), a retired CIA analyst who’s now the State Department’s spokesman, for “evidence” that Russia is making a propaganda film faking a Ukraine attack against Russia in order to create a pretext for a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Price answers, “because I said so.” That’s not evidence, Lee says. The exchange goes downhill from there. Basically, Price doesn’t want reporters like Lee asking how U.S. intelligence gets information. But it’s a fair question because, as CNN‘s Erin Burnett points out as the video continues, the U.S. government’s intelligence has been wrong before. Lots of times.
Price, between a rock and a hard place, is at sea. He can’t reveal the CIA’s methods or sources. But lacking a journalism background, and not knowing how to handle inquisitive reporters asking about sensitive topics, he overtalks and talks down to him, and then suggests the reporter is aiding America’s enemies by asking the question. That’s not the right way to do it.
And it isn’t just Price who bobbled a response; White House press secretary Jen Psaki did, too (that’s also in this video). The administration has to do better than this.