In Wednesday's White House press briefing, Jen Psaki was asked about the Biden administration's rather disjointed reaction to a federal judge in Florida striking down the CDC's mask mandate for travelers and its delayed response to the ruling — as Townhall reported earlier this week.
But when given the opportunity to explain and justify the Biden administration's decision to appeal the federal judge's invalidation of the CDC's federal mask mandate, Psaki admitted that the White House would fight the ruling in order to "preserve that authority for the CDC to have in the future." That is, it's not about The Science(TM), it's about protecting power.
"We are entirely able to, and legally able to, be a part of the discussion," Psaki told reporters about the Biden administration's appeal. "But right now we of course are deferring to the CDC on what they believe is needed at this moment," she said despite the fact that the White House has repeatedly gotten in front of CDC guidance in the past.
"They've already, they obviously put in place this two week extension because they felt they needed that to take a look at the data given that we've seen a rise in cases, so we certainly anticipate to hear more from them soon on their ask for being able to have that time which we think is entirely warranted," Psaki continued. "And the Department of Justice, as you noted, has indicated that they would appeal not just because they think it's entirely reasonable of course to have this additional time to look at it but because they think that the current, for current and future public health crises, we want to preserve that authority for the CDC to have in the future," she argued.
Psaki later said the White House's focus following the federal judge's decision was "seeing what power we had to preserve what we felt was in the public health interest of the country." Again, all about power to enforce what they feel, rather than empirical evidence rooted in actual science.
PSAKI: "Our focus here was seeing what power we had to preserve" forced masking on airplanes. pic.twitter.com/OV98Nh1g1j
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 20, 2022