'I Didn't Say That'
Press secretary has tense exchange over constitutionality of evictions moratorium
For White House press secretary Jen Psaki, any celebration over Tuesday evening's new evictions moratorium from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came to a screeching halt Wednesday during her regular daily press briefing.
There, she was challenged by reporters over the constitutionality of the moratorium, given that the Supreme Court last month issued an iffy opinion over the previous moratorium, which expired Saturday.
Psaki was asked if there was an “inconsistency” in Biden's administration overseeing a moratorium “in the face of doubts about its constitutionality.”
She pressed the reporter who, exactly, was leveling such a charge.
The reporter could say, only that it was “plenty of people who are saying it.”
Psaki then moved on, to clarify Biden's position.
“I think what's important to note here Is that the president would not have moved forward with a step where he didn't feel comfortable and confident in the legal justification,” she said.
At the same time, the administration isn't going to “hide from” actions taken by the Supreme Court, Psaki said.
“But he asked the CDC, and his legal experts, to look at what is possible,” she added, referring to the president. “This is a narrow, targeted moratorium that is different from the national moratorium. It's not an extension of that. It's a different moratorium, from a policy and legal standpoint.”
Where the previous moratorium was a blanket moratorium, the new one issued Tuesday is targeted only at those “counties experiencing substantial or high levels of COVID-19 transmission.”
Reporters continued to press Psaki on the constitutionality and she reiterated the narrower scope of the new moratorium.
“The justification from the legal team is that this is a different moratorium. … It is not an extension of the moratorium that was struck down just six weeks ago,” she said.
The reporters apparently wouldn't — or couldn't — grasp the differences between the two moratoria as they continued to plunge on.
“It’s still a question that it's constitutional, but it's worth it” to try, asked one reporter.
“I didn't say that,” Psaki clarified. “[Biden] would not have advocated and supported moving forward with something if he wasn't comfortable with the legal justification.”
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