Jen Psaki is always the smartest person in the room. She’s a national treasure.
Q Thank you, Jen. And following up on the questions about January 6th: I know you’ve spoken to the decision by the White House Counsel’s Office to tell the Archives to hand over those documents. Has there been any concern or conversation about what might happen one day when the shoe is on the other foot and if another administration or the other party comes in and says there’s an extraordinary circumstance and they want to hand over documents that were deemed privileged by the Biden administration?
MS. PSAKI: I can assure you, Ed, that this President has no intention to lead an insurrection on our nation’s Capitol.
Q I anticipated that would be your answer almost word for word.
MS. PSAKI: Oh, good.
Q But part of — I mean, you can understand that you’re opening, potentially, a Pandora’s box here by setting this precedent.
MS. PSAKI: Actually, we don’t — we don’t see it that way. I understand why you’re asking this question. We talked about this a little bit last week as well.
I think it is ultimately important for people to understand and remember that January 6th was an incredibly dark day — one of the darkest days in our democracy. There was an insurrection on our nation’s Capitol.
What we’re talking about here is getting to the bottom of that. Shouldn’t everybody want to get to the bottom of that? Democrats, Republicans, people who have no political affiliation whatsoever.
I will reiterate that we’re going to assess and review, as is standard in the process, the documents and any efforts to exert executive privilege on a case-by-case basis. And we’ll provide you updates on those as those processes proceed. And we will continue, as it relates to executive privilege for other issues, to evaluate that on a case-by-case basis, as every White House has in the past.
But I think if you look back at past Presidents, Democratic and Republican, there isn’t really a precedent for what we’re talking about with the select committee and what they’re trying to get to the bottom of. And the uniqueness of that, I think, is important context.
Q On the issue of negotiating with Congress on the President’s agenda, the negotiating timetable isn’t open-ended. Is there anything new you can say about what the President himself has done this week to engage in those negotiations?
MS. PSAKI: I can tell you that the President has been deeply engaged on the phone with members, getting updates from his team and senior members of his team on their conversations and discussions; eager to hear where there’s agreement, where there’s still disagreement, and how to shake things loose to move them forward.
Q And I have an FDA question, but not on what you might anticipate.
MS. PSAKI: Oh, I like the setup. Okay.
Q There was a decision this week by the agency to approve specific vapes, or vaping cigarettes, saying they’re appropriate protection of public health. What does the President make of that decision? And does he support taxing e-cigarettes along with other more traditional tobacco products?
I know this was an element of the Build Back Better payfor agenda originally. Does he still support doing that?
MS. PSAKI: It wasn’t something that he had proposed originally, so I would just note that. Obviously, we would —
Q Sorry, yes. Some Democrats —
MS. PSAKI: Some Democrats.
Q — proposed it as —
MS. PSAKI: But I think it’s important context, right? —
Q Yes. Totally.
MS. PSAKI: — that he didn’t propose that.
Look, the FDA, as you noted, did approve some e-cigarettes. They spoke to this, and I would certainly point you to their comments. The President supports the independent review and process of the FDA.
Beyond that, I’m not aware of any proposal for taxing cigarettes coming from here.
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