Veteran reporter Kelly O'Donnell told Biden his comment was a 'compliment,' earning a chuckle from the president (pictured in the White House briefing room on July 6)
Biden snapped at an NBC reporter for asking about the Department of Veterans' Affairs vaccine mandate on Monday during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi at the White House on Monday.
After meeting with the Iraqi leader Biden took several questions on the United States' relationship with Iraq and American strategy in the Middle East.
As White House staff began ushering reporters out of the room, O'Donnell shouted a question about Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough's department-wide COVID vaccine mandate for its health care workers.
'You are such a pain in the neck, but I'm going to answer your question because we've known each other so long,' the president shot back.
O'Donnell retorted, 'I take that as a compliment, Mr. President,' earning a chuckle from Biden.
A veteran journalist who started at NBC in 1994, O'Donnell first covered the White House under George W. Bush's administration.
O'Donnell seemed to clarify that her exchange with Biden was friendly by stating he hurled the insult 'with a smile'
Biden told her the question had 'nothing to do with Iraq' before confirming McDonough's announcement.
'Yes. Veteran Affairs is going to in fact require that all docs working in facilities are going to have to be vaccinated,' Biden said regarding health care workers at the VA.
He did not, however, respond when O'Donnell tried to ask a follow up about further COVID vaccine requirements for federal employees.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Monday become the first federal agency to require its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated.
President Joe Biden said that 'all docs' working at Veterans Affairs Department facilities would be required to get vaccinated after snapping at NBC's O'Donnell for asking the question
Following the action, 115,000 staffers will have two months to get inoculated against the coronavirus, and face being fired if they do not oblige.
The move comes after the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association and dozens of other medical groups joined in a statement calling for mandatory vaccinations for health workers amid the spike in the Delta variant and rising infections in states with low vaccination rates.
'We call for all health care and long-term care employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against covid-19,' they wrote. 'The health and safety of
