Jay Carney can give as good as he gets.
The departing White House press secretary heaped criticism on reporters vying for TV time with their questions in the daily briefings and revealed his astonishment at the lack of independent thinking among the press corps.
Bemoaning the “theatricality” of the press conferences, Carney blamed reporters for starting sparring matches just so they "get their crack at a moment on TV," he said Monday during an interview on “Morning Joe.”
“They’ve become more and more combative, there’s a certain element of theater to them,” he said, adding how former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, who served under Clinton, “has apologized to every one of his successors for being the press secretary who agreed to allow the briefing to be televised in full.”
Carney, a former journalist himself, also chided the media for a lack of originality.
“If you watch a briefing in its entirety, I think you’ll be struck by how often the same questions are repeated, even when they’ve been asked two minutes before,” he said, boasting that he can more or less predict most of the questions that will be thrown at him.
The 49-year-old did offer a word of praise for his cohorts on the other side of the podium.
“In the end, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the folks in the briefing room, the reporters who work hard every day trying to get it right.”
In a surprise move on Friday, President Obama announced Carney would be stepping down as the chief White House spokesman.
“I’ve got a couple of kids that are still pretty young and 5 ½ years is a fairly long amount of time to be not fully present with your kids,” Carney said of the motivation for the move.
Carney joined the administration as Joe Biden’s communications director in 2008.
“I kind of fell into a job I love” and he stuck around when Obama promoted him in 2011.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest will replace Carney in mid-June.
llarson@nydailynews.com
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