WH says travel restrictions in light of Omicron follow medical advice
During a White House briefing on Monday, press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden imposed restrictions on travel from several African countries due to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus based on advice from medical experts. Pushing back on a question from Fox News’s Peter Doocy about then-candidate Biden’s criticism of former President Donald Trump early in 2020, Psaki said Biden was critical of a “xenophobic” tweet by Trump, not about travel restrictions.
Video Transcript
- Thank you, Jen. Before Joe Biden was president, he said that COVID travel restrictions on foreign countries were hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering. So what changed?
- Well, I would say first to put it in full context, Peter. What the president was critical of was the way that the former President put out I believe a xenophobic tweet and how he called, what he called the Coronavirus and who he directed it at.
The president has not been critical of travel restrictions. We have put those in place ourselves. So we put them in place ourselves in the spring.
But no he does not believe he believes we should follow the advice of health and medical experts. That's exactly what he did. And putting in place these restrictions over the weekend.
