During her daily press conference on Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki once again offered up the kind of sarcastic barb that’s become something of a trademark. This time, Psaki’s comment — likely received by some as some sort of epic clapback — was prompted by a tough but well-founded question from a member of the press corps:

Frankly, things just seem like they’re going pretty poorly right now for the White House. Build Back Better is being blocked, voting rights are being blocked, diplomatic talks with Russia doesn’t seem to have brought us back from the brink of war, inflation is at a forty-year high, the virus is setting records for infections. So, as we hit this one-year period and a period where everything seems like it’s in pretty rough shape, or nearly everything . . . I’m wondering, at what point do you take stock and say that things need to change internally? Whether it’s your outreach from the hill, whether it’s your leadership in the White House . . . you seem to be stymied on an incredible number of fronts right now.

Given how poorly things are going for the Biden administration as it approaches one year in office, there’s probably no good response to such a question. But Psaki’s reply, reminiscent in many ways of a sarcastic rejoinder she offered to NPR’s Mara Liasson last month, carried with it an undeniable hint of condescension amid a list of the White House’s accomplishments to date (Psaki citing, among other things, the American Rescue Plan, vaccination rates, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill). “So the sense is that things are going well?” the reporter pressed after Psaki’s initial answer, to which she responded: