White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended New Jersey’s new mask rules when a Fox News reporter compared Gov. Phil Murphy’s policies with those of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.
At a White House press briefing Monday, Covid masks were a hot topic following the news that New Jersey and Delaware are lifting statewide mask mandates.
Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich kicked off the barrage of questions.
“We got announcements that in Delaware and New Jersey, the governors are going to be ending mask mandates coming up pretty soon,” Heinrich said, and asked “What is the White House view on these kinds of announcements, given that in Virginia, Governor Youngkin faced a lot of pushback from Democrats for making similar changes to the mask policy?”
Psaki took exception to the comparison, telling Heinrich that “they weren’t actually that similar because what happened here in New Jersey and a couple of other states you mentioned is that they pulled back the requirement. They didn’t make it more difficult for schools, school administrators, and local officials to keep requirements that they made a determination would keep their schools safe.”
Youngkin’s order superseded local regulations in allowing parents to opt their children out of mask requirements.
Several other reporters noted the current CDC guidance is for universal masking in schools, and asked Psaki to square the conflict with the states lifting statewide requirements.
Psaki reiterated several
Psaki also noted, several times, that “It’s always been up to local school districts to determine how they implement.”
Watch above via NBC News.