White House Spokesman: GOP Debate Was Like A ‘Tough Day At The Airport’

White House press secretary Josh Earnest pauses during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 25, 2014. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Wednesday... White House press secretary Josh Earnest pauses during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 25, 2014. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Wednesday the Republican-controlled House will file an election-year lawsuit accusing President Barack Obama of failing to carry out the laws passed by Congress. In response, Earnest accused congressional Republicans of obstruction and said they had left Obama with little option but to make greater use of his executive authority. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) MORE LESS
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White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday that the GOP debate reminded him of a “tough day at the airport.”

Republican presidential candidates duked it out on Wednesday night — the second GOP debate of the season.

“I have to admit that watching the debate reminded me a little bit of a tough day at the airport,” Earnest said, to laughter from the press. “You saw a dozen people in suits who are lined up at kiosks in front of a plane.”

“They seemed angry, they seemed pessimistic ,and they’re looking for somebody to threaten. But, they also stood there for three hours,” Earnest said. “So, you can hardly blame them. But what we didn’t see is we didn’t see a lot of the sunny optimism that is typical of the President whose library they stood in.”

The debate came up earlier in the week in Earnest’s daily media briefing when he repeatedly told reporters that President Obama had no plans to watch the second Republican debate.

Watch the clip of Earnest’s comments at Mediaite.

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Notable Replies

  1. Hmmmm…yep, tough day at the airport indeed. And they were all on American Airlines which was shut down this morning…

  2. I’ve read someone describing it as like watching mental health patients, without their medications, try to put on a talent show.

  3. These guys were bewildered, desperate and pissed off in general.

    It looked like a meeting of a small-town city council after the Little Big Horn.

  4. The airport to Hell.

  5. Here was a “tough day at the airport.”:

    Try 9/11/2001 around 11a, eastern time, when all the flights were grounded because the ‘President That Kept Us Safe’ disregarded a transmission about someone wanting to attack buildings in the US.

    That’s a tough day at the airport.

    Or maybe having been a passenger on one of those planes.

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