Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg employed a hypocritical double normal Thursday after justifying his forthcoming attendance on the White Home Correspondents Affiliation Dinner.

What’s the background?

The White Home Correspondents’ Dinner shall be held this Saturday for the primary time since 2019. Greater than 2,500 persons are anticipated to attend, in keeping with the New York Instances.

At an occasion the place journalists rub elbows with the political and Hollywood elite, COVID-19 protocols have been a precedence concern. Nevertheless, no masks shall be required. As an alternative, occasion organizers are requiring that each attendee be vaccinated and show a destructive COVID-19 check on the identical day of the occasion, the Washington Put up reported.

Nonetheless, these necessities weren’t sufficient for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who revealed on Tuesday that he won’t attend the occasion “due to my particular person evaluation of my private threat.”

What did Buttigieg say?

Fox Information host Bret Baier pressed Buttigieg on how Biden administration officers, together with the president himself, can attend the dinner whereas concurrently preventing to reinstate the journey masks mandate.

“You simply instructed me you are going to the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner. The president’s going to the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner. You are not mandated to put on a masks there, however the administration on the identical time is preventing a lawsuit to mandate individuals on planes, trains, and buses to put on masks. So, for those who’re sitting at residence, there is a disconnect right here,” Baier noticed.

Buttigieg supplied a parody-level declare in response.

“Nicely, I feel most of us perceive the distinction between a resort ballroom and an airplane,” he mentioned. “And once more, quite a lot of that is about what authorities the CDC has. So even when they do not assume we want it in any respect, they nonetheless need to be sure that we get readability in courtroom on the legalities [of the mandate].”

Buttigieg added that sporting a face masks on an airplane is “your name,” however Baier rapidly retorted that it’s only “as much as you if the administration loses the enchantment.”

Baier presses Buttigieg on Biden’s ‘disconnect’ with voters

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Buttigieg is true. There’s a vital distinction between a resort ballroom and an airplane: The plane has cleaner air.

In reality, American Airways CEO Doug Parker and Southwest CEO Gary Kelly instructed the Senate final December that face masks aren’t crucial on industrial airliners due to the air filters that planes use.

“I feel the case could be very robust that masks do not add a lot, if something, within the air cabin surroundings. It is rather protected and really top quality in comparison with another indoor setting,” Kelly mentioned.

Parker added, “I concur. An plane is the most secure place you may be. It is true of all of our plane — all of them have the identical HEPA filters and air stream.”