Jake Tapper Presses NJ Governor on Keeping Indoor Mask Mandate: ‘Why Did You Decide to Go Against the CDC Guidance?’

CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about the Garden State keeping its indoor mask mandate for now.

After the CDC announced new masking guidelines for vaccinated people to essentially shed masks in most circumstances, several states said they’re holding on for now, with Murphy saying the indoor mask mandate will remain in place right now.

“The majority of New Jerseyans are still unvaccinated, and keeping this mandate in place in public settings protects you, your family, essential workers, and our entire community,” Murphy tweeted Monday.

Tapper started by asking the governor, “Why did you decide to go against the CDC guidance and keep the indoor mask mandates in place for fully vaccinated people?”

“I wouldn’t say necessarily against it,” Murphy responded. “We’re just not ready yet.”

He talked about the serious death toll and number of covid cases New Jersey has faced in the past year, and said, “You’re asking somebody who is at the hardware store working there or in a retail or a grocery store to make the judgment on who’s vaccinated and who’s not. We’re not there yet.”

Murphy added that “we’re close” and said the state is getting to a better place “within a matter of weeks.”

“This is not remotely forever and always. This is a matter of a couple of more weeks on the clock.”

Tapper asked what the benchmark will be for lifting those restrictions.

“It’s going to be a series of health data points that are all right now, thank God at long last, going in the right direction. Combination we look at spot positivity, rate of transmission, hospitalizations, ICU beds, the whole range of things that we look at, again, all going well at the moment,” Murphy said. “We’ve got the virus on the run at long last. Twice before we thought we had this thing on the run and it came back and clobbered us again. I don’t want to see that again.”

You can watch above, via CNN.