White House's Palmieri Defends Statement Aimed at Press Corps on Gender Pay Equity

White House's Palmieri Defends Statement Aimed at Press Corps on Gender Pay Equity

On Fox News Channel’s “America’s News HQ” on Wednesday, network White House correspondent Ed Henry followed up with White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri on an interaction he had with her last week.

Palmieri made an effort to justify her tweets at Henry, which seemed critical of questions about gender pay equity from Henry and other members of the White House press corps.

“What I found interesting was that I noted the news organizations that had men, all with the exception of Julie Pace with the Associated Press, asking the questions of Jay [Carney], and you know, you had some very pertinent questions and I know that you know that men and women should always be paid dollar for dollar,” Palmieri said. “But I think a lot of the questions were questions where there was a problem. And that is, I think that is something that is interesting that both men and women correspondents want to probe that more. And that’s why it is good we are having this discussion. But it is a commentary not on you of all. As I said, I love all of you guys and you guys do good work. This is in whom they send. Now in terms of Jay, I guess I should address this. It is fair criticism. I saw a lot of it that they have – our press secretary is a man, a man who thinks it’s a big problem. His wife wrote a book about it, about pay equity and supports these rules. And here, I am the communications director. I’m a woman. I’m out here today.”

Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeff_poor

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.