White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday excused President Biden’s decision to not wear a mask inside a DC restaurant as “moments in time that don’t reflect overarching policy.”
Psaki defended Biden after he became the latest high-profile Democrat to flout mask mandates despite advocating for others to comply with them. DC requires restaurant customers to wear masks if they aren’t actively eating or drinking.
Biden was photographed walking through DC’s Fiola Mare restaurant Saturday night without a mask. He later left the business with an also un-masked first lady Jill Biden.
“I think what you are referring to is a photo of them walking out of a restaurant after they had eaten, mask in hand — where they had not yet put them back on yet,” Psaki said at her daily press briefing.
“I would say, of course, there are moments when we all don’t put masks back on as quickly as we should.”
But Psaki added, “I don’t think we should lose the forest for the trees here — in that our objective here is to get more people vaccinated, make sure that schools and companies around the country can put in place requirements to save more lives and keep more people safer.”
She said people should “not overly focus on moments in time that don’t reflect overarching policy.”
Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy pressed Psaki, saying, “It was not just exiting the restaurant. He was walking through the restaurant with no mask on.”
“I think I just addressed it, Peter,” she curtly replied.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, also a Democrat, reimposed an indoor mask mandate on businesses in July, citing a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the more contagious Delta variant.
Bowser earned national ridicule for delaying the renewed mandate to take effect after her own mask-free indoor birthday party with comedian Dave Chappelle. Bowser was filmed the day after her mandate took effect without a mask during an indoor wedding reception. She was not actively eating or drinking.
The long list of alleged mask hypocrites includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who lives near the restaurant that Biden visited. She infamously was recorded walking mask-less through a San Francisco hair salon during the height of the pandemic.