At this point, it seems White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s only job is to clean up President Joe Biden’s verbal messes. Her preferred method is to pretend he did not say what he just said.
How else are we to interpret her recent comments on Biden’s new eviction moratorium?
Earlier this week, Biden admitted on live television that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s updated eviction moratorium will almost certainly be struck down because the Supreme Court has explicitly warned the federal government that any executive extension of the moratorium would be unconstitutional. When asked why, if he knew the moratorium was unconstitutional, Biden was pursuing it anyway, Psaki tried to say Biden wasn’t concerned about its legality at all.
“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. “But he asked the CDC and his legal experts to look at what is possible. This is a narrow, targeted moratorium that is different from the national moratorium. It’s not an extension of that.”
This is not at all what Biden communicated when he announced the new eviction moratorium. He explicitly mentioned that “the bulk of the constitutional scholarship” the White House consulted “says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster,” but he’s allowing the CDC to enforce it anyway.
Another Biden adviser, Gene Sperling, confirmed that not even a more limited moratorium could be implemented legally.
“The president has not only kicked the tires. He has double, triple, quadruple checked,” Sperling said during a Monday press conference, with Psaki by his side. “He has asked the CDC to look at whether you could even do targeted eviction moratorium that just went to the counties that have higher rates, and they, as well, have been unable to find the legal authority for even new, targeted eviction moratoriums.”
So Psaki’s claim that Biden does, in fact, have a legal avenue is a flat-out lie easily debunked by the president’s own words. She might have been able to get away with this dishonest spin if Biden and his senior adviser hadn’t accidentally let the quiet part slip. They have already admitted that they know what they’re doing is unconstitutional. The point is that they don’t care. Psaki’s attempt to pretend otherwise is embarrassing.
