A day after PBS’s Lisa DeJardins askedJen Psaki, White House Press Secretary for Comment on the latest Hunter Biden findingBy the New York Post, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich came into Tuesday’s briefing with a question that’ll be worth revisiting as the Biden probe in Delaware moves along as she wanted to know whether President Joe Biden still stands by his claims that he never discussed Hunter’s business dealings with him or with other people.
Heinrich enclosed Heinrich’s questions in a context about Hunter. Post’s story from this past weekend that said a Hunter Biden associate had visited the White House 19 times while Hunter’s father was Vice President:
Is the President still claiming that he has never spoken to his son about business deals? And given this reporting on Eric Schwerin, does he also say that he has never spoken to his son’s business partners about his son’s business dealings?
Psaki insisted on the President “maintains his same statements that he’s made in the past,” Notes of disapproval were added to the matter, as it involved White House visitor logs “more than 10 years ago” and thus she doesn’t “have more detail or information.”
As for the validity of Joe’s claims, that’ll be for the U.S. Attorney in Delaware and a grand jury to figure out. The exchanges were not mentioned on either the evening or morning broadcast networks newscasts.
Prior to her Hunter question, Heinrich brought up the CDC order Title 42 and its use at the southern border and whether it was true that the President’s “looking forward to lifting Title 42, describing it as an excuse to keep people out of the country and anti-immigrant.”
Psaki said that although “never felt that Title 42 was a — an effective immigration policy…the authority has always rested in the CDC to make that determination.”
And on a topic semi-related, Heinrich questioned whether the supposed drying up of government COVID-19 funding could soon result in a scenario with illegal immigrants receiving vaccinations and pandemic-related care free of charge while American citizens aren’t (click “expand”):
HEINRICH: We’ve talked about the administration surging resources to the border —
PSAKI: Yeah.
HEINRICH: — including resources to vaccinate migrants. And the last time I asked about this, I believe your answer was something along the lines of, “We have enough funding and supply to take care of the 23 sites that DHS is going to be running to get migrants vaccinated and also take care of uninsured Americans.” But it sounded, in his answer, like that might not be the case anymore. Are we now in a situation where the government or people might need to decide between helping migrants cross the border, and caring for uninsured Americans instead?
PSAKI: I’m happy to check on those resources, Jacqui. My concern over COVID funding stems from a few issues he mentioned. The first is to ensure we can order ahead in the future. Secondly, we need to have a wide range of treatments available that allow us access to the most effective vaccines and boosters. We also want to ensure that all programs continue to run across the nation.
CBS’s Weijia Jiang came up prior to Heinrich and had a question that brought out a snappy reply from Psaki:
JIANG – Does that concern you? [Joe Manchin’s]Is it true that Title 42 must be retained until there’s an immigration policy?
PSAKI: Well, that’s just not how it works. Obviously, Title 42 is — the authority was given to the CDC by Congress. They took a decision. If Congress wants to decide — make any decisions about the next steps for Title 42, they can work together[.]
Going back to COVID-19, Reuters’s Nandita Bose did her part representingPandemic police forever and unanswered “whether the administration and society as a whole perhaps have moved away a bit too quickly from mitigation efforts such as masking.”
To see the relevant briefing transcript from April 26, click “expand.”
White House Press Briefing
April 26, 2022
Eastern, 3:27 p.m.NANDITA BOOSE: Dr. Jha answers a quick question about the cases rising and the positive VP test. Would you be willing to talk about whether society, as well as the administration, have gone too far from masking and mitigation? Are you thinking of strengthening those measures?
JEN PSAKI (English): These decisions and recommendations are made jointly by the CDC, our public health officers and other government agencies. So I don’t have anything to preview for you. They make those decisions and they are the ones we follow. I’d remind you that their recommendations include — are based on what zone of the country you live in — right? — whether it is a green zone, a yellow zone, or a zone that has a higher rate. And they continue to recommend masking on transportation on fed- — you know, that we — and we abide by that from here as well. So, I don’t have any changes on that to preview. But as Dr. Jha noted, our focus — and as we noted when we rolled out our 100-page plan — continues to be on tracking and reducing hospitalizations and deaths. And we’re certainly aware that a very — with a very transmissible variant, that there — we expect that there could be case increases, as we’ve seen over the last few weeks with BA.2.
(….)
Eastern Time: 3:35 pm
WEIJIA JiANG: Do you find it worrying? [Joe Manchin’s]Saying that Title 42 shouldn’t be eliminated until an immigration policy is in place?
PSAKI: Well, that’s just not how it works. Obviously, Title 42 is — the authority was given to the CDC by Congress. They took a decision. If Congress wants to decide — make any decisions about the next steps for Title 42, they can work together on that. But that is an authority or a decision that have to — would have to lay in the body that he works in.
(….)
Eastern Time: 3:38
JACQUI HEINRICH: On Title 42, we’ve heard you guys say that this is a public health order, it’s not an immigration order, it’s the CDC’s decision. Yesterday, however, members from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with President Obama and relayed some aspects of his remarks. The President said to the group that Title 42 was an excuse to stop people coming into the country, and that it is anti-immigrant. Does the President want Title 42 to be removed because it is a Trump-era strategy?
PSAKI: Well, the President has never felt that Title 42 was a — an effective immigration policy, and he talked about that during the campaign. However, the CDC has the power to decide that. He left the CDC in order to make this determination about a wide range of decisions, not unlike his predecessor. So, the President has never — never made a secret of the fact that he thinks immigration reform is necessary and that Title 42 was never a replacement for comprehensive immigration reform that would put in place smarter security, that would ensure there was an asylum processing system that worked. He would gladly work with others to achieve that goal.
HEINRICH: So if this — conditions warranted it, would the White House want to see the CDC reimpose Title 42 in the instance that the cases are up and the metrics that they use to measure that warrant that decision?
PSAKI: Again, it is up to the CDC to decide what conditions require, so we will allow them to take any decision or make recommendations.
HEINRICH: And then, with the Vice President being out — obviously, she’s broken a lot of ties for votes — and then we have senators; I believe Warre- — Wyden and Murphy also out — is there any concern about ability to get confirmations through this week with her absence?
PSAKI : There are some Democrats, too. They have publicly announced they were positive for COVID. This could be the Federal Reserve nominees, or other individuals. Congress will discuss this with its members and leaders. They have all the votes they need to be confirmed. We’re eager to have them in place. But, of course, we need all of people — all members there to do that.
HEINRICH: And then I had one follow-up on Dr. Jha — something that he said earlier.
PSAKI: Sure.
HEINRICH: We’ve talked about the administration surging resources to the border —
PSAKI: Yeah.
HEINRICH: — including resources to vaccinate migrants. And the last time I asked about this, I believe your answer was something along the lines of, “We have enough funding and supply to take care of the 23 sites that DHS is going to be running to get migrants vaccinated and also take care of uninsured Americans.” But it sounded, in his answer, like that might not be the case anymore. Is there a point now when people or government might have to make a decision between providing resources for migrants crossing the border and taking care of the uninsured Americans?
PSAKI: I’m happy to check on those resources, Jacqui. His concerns about COVID funding are rooted in a few issues. The first is to ensure we can order ahead in the future. Secondly, we need to have a wide range of treatments available that allow us access to the most effective vaccines and boosters. We want all our programs to continue running in the United States. But —
HEINRICH: And I just have one more on the Hunter Biden reporting that we’ve seen come out. Do you still believe that the President never talked to his son regarding his business dealings with him? And given this reporting on Eric Schwerin, does he also say that he has never spoken to his son’s business partners about his son’s business dealings?
PSAKI: He maintains his same statements that he’s made in the past. I would say — I know you’re referring to WAVES records that were released more than 10 years ago. I really don’t have more detail or information on them. I’d note that there was a gap when WAVES records were not released, but I don’t have more information about visits from more than 10 years ago.
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