The White House had no update on how President Joe Biden will keep his campaign promise to end the death penalty after the Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Biden supported Attorney General Merrick Garland’s federal execution moratorium amid a comprehensive review of the practice, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. But at the same time, he understood the “deep pain” that Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan caused when they set off two homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon in 2003, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. Two police officers involved in the manhunt for the pair later died as well.
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“He has deep concerns about whether capital punishment is consistent with the values that are fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness,” Psaki told reporters Friday. “But I would just say that the president expressed horror at the events of the Boston Marathon bombing at the time.”
The Supreme Court upheld Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence Friday, reversing a 2020 federal appeals court decision that ordered a new penalty-phase trial. Tsarnaev was originally convicted in 2015 on 30 counts, including using a weapon of mass destruction and with malicious destruction of property resulting in death.
Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Cecilia Rouse also joined Psaki in the briefing room Friday. The White House had earlier touted Labor Department reports of 678,000 jobs being created last month, with an unemployment rate of 3.8%.
Rouse was pressed on whether the administration believed the economy could withstand a U.S. ban on Russian oil.
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“We are looking at options that we can take right now,” she said. “If we were to cut the U.S. consumption of Russian energy, but what’s really most important is we, that we maintain a steady supply of global energy.”
