(Washington) A spokesman for Joe Biden was suspended for a week on Friday after threatening a journalist and making sexual comments about her in a phone conversation.
TJ Ducklo, 32, who was part of the Joe Biden campaign team, joined the White House and became deputy to Jen Psaki, a spokesperson for the US Executive Department.
âI will destroy you,â he would have said privately to this Politico journalist, Tara Palmieri, according to the accident account he gave Vanity Fair.
The latter called him to inquire about his intimate relationship with another journalist, Alexei McCamond of Axios, and the ethical questions that this might raise.
âTJ Ducklo apologized to the journalist who had a heated conversation with him about his personal life,â M repliedI Psaki.
PHOTO EVAN VUCCI, AP
White House spokeswoman Jane Psaki
“He is the first to realize that his behavior was not up to the standards set by the president,” she added.
On the same day as he arrived at the White House, Joe Biden publicly warned his teams that he would not tolerate any slippage.
“I’m not kidding when I say this: If you work with me and hear that you treat a colleague with contempt or contempt, I promise that I will fire you immediately,” he said.
When asked during her daily press conference about the gap between that presidential promise and the relatively lenient sentence – a week of suspension – that decisions were made against his deputy, Jin Saki dodges.
It will not happen again. She responded to that, and this will not be tolerated in the White House.