President Joe Biden’s White House has suspended one of its spokespeople after a report that he had threatened a reporter who was investigating his relationship with another journalist.
TJ Ducklo, a longtime Biden campaign aide who serves as deputy press secretary, will be suspended without pay for one week, according to a statement from Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Vanity Fair reported Friday that Ducklo pressured Tara Palmeri, a Politico reporter, over questions about Ducklo’s relationship with Axios reporter Alexi McCammond. “I will destroy you,” Ducklo allegedly told Palmeri, according to Vanity Fair, which cited two sources it didn’t identify. Ducklo and McCammond went public with their relationship in a People magazine story.
Ducklo “has apologized to the reporter, with whom he had a heated conversation about his personal life,” Psaki said in a series of tweets. In addition to the suspension, which she said was approved by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Ducklo “will no longer be assigned to work with any reporters at Politico.”
Ducklo worked in the communications department at Bloomberg from April 2016 to March 2017. CNN reported Psaki’s statement earlier Friday.
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