Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, March 30, 2021

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:48 P.M. EDT

MS. PSAKI: Okay. I have a couple of items of good news for the American people today to kick us off.

Today, the President will sign an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program, which passed both the House and Senate with wide bipartisan majorities. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 400,000 small businesses have closed for good and millions more are struggling to stay open.

In December, Congress provided an additional $284 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program. In just two months, we’ve approved over $200 billion worth of forgivable loans to more than 3 million small businesses. And in this round, we’ve distributed a greater share of relief to very small businesses.

So today, the President will sign the Extension Act into law. We want small businesses to know that help is here, and they now have until May 31st to apply.

As we do every week, Jeff Zients hosted a call with governors from across the country. He, of course, provided them an update on what the President announced yesterday: that, by April 19, 90 percent of adults in the U.S. will be eligible for vaccination and 90 percent will have a vaccination site within five miles of where they live.

This will be made possible by increasing the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program from 17,000 to nearly 40,000 stores nationwide — a program that started out as a pilot and has been very successful.

He also announced there will be an increase of supply to over 33 million vaccine doses across all of our channels, which is going to help meet the needs with the — moving forward — of the eligibility timeline.

Another update in terms of our — getting the checks out to people: There have been — there are a significant number of Social Security recipients who do not file taxes. As we noted earlier — or a couple weeks ago, I should say — direct payments went out very quickly to those who file taxes every year, who do it via direct deposit. And thanks to collaboration between the IRS and the Social Security Administration, they will soon announce that we are on track to send those payments out this weekend. The majority of people should see them in the bank account — in their bank accounts on Wednesday, April 7th, which is obviously a very positive step forward.

Finally, as many of you saw earlier this morning, the President announced his historic slate of judicial nominees of his administration — the first historic slate, I should say — with 11 candidates overall. This is an unprecedented fast start for any President in the U.S. history on judicial nominations.

This is also a groundbreaking slate in many ways. It includes four nominees who have served as public defenders; four nominees who are members of the AAPI community; a nominee who, if confirmed, would be the first Muslim-American federal judge in history; nine of the eleven nominees are women.

And overall, this group represents a paradigm shift in the type of people who can see themselves on the federal bench while still maintaining the President’s absolute highest standards for the qualifications, integrity, and fairness of each individual being considered.

So, lots of news. Go ahead, kick us off.


 * Q Thank you, Jen. I want to start by asking on guns.  It has been noted, actually, that 40 years ago today was the attempted assassination of President Reagan.  But some gun safety groups have expressed disappointment in the President’s sidestep of the issue in his news conference last week.  Can you give an update on what is in the works in terms of a timetable for possible executive actions on guns?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, first, let me say the President understands their frustration.  He is somebody who has fought for gun safety measures since he was in the Senate himself.  He did that in his effort to fight for the Brady Bill, in his effort to fight for a ban on assault weapons, and in his leadership getting — putting in place almost two dozen executive actions on gun safety when he was in the Biden — Obama-Biden administration.


 * Q Okay. And a follow-up on that and then one other matter.  On the — on guns, does the President still plan to go to Colorado after the mass shootings there?  And if so, when?
 * MS. PSAKI: I don’t have an update on a trip to Colorado.  Obviously, that trip would be done in coordination with the leaders in the state community that was impacted by this terrible tragedy, but I don’t have any plans to preview for a trip to Colorado at this point.


 * Q And then one more thing. On another lighter matter, it’s obviously a presidential tradition to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, which I’m happy to report is Thursday.  But the Nationals have said that the President declined their invitation to go to this year.  Why is that?  Why is he not going?  Is this about crowds in the park?  Is it about sending the wrong messaging?  Why is he choosing not to be there on Thursday?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, first, let me say I know the President is eager to get out to Nationals Stadium.  Many beautiful days, many beautiful baseball games ahead this spring.  It’s not on his schedule this week, but I certainly expect that baseball fans will be hearing from him in the next couple days.


 * Q Thanks, Jen. A question about your infrastructure proposal being released tomorrow.  Is it going to focus more on shovel-ready projects that could get underway right away, or is it focused more on projects that might take a couple of years to get started but could ultimately have a bigger impact?
 * MS. PSAKI: It’s a great question, and I expect we’ll have more to outline on how quickly things can happen once he delivers the speech tomorrow.  But let me just say that the speech tomorrow is about making an investment in America — not just modernizing our roads or railways or bridges, but building an infrastructure of the future.


 * Q And how much more should wealthy Americans expect to pay? Will the top marginal rate go back to 39.6 percent under this proposal?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I expect that tomorrow — again, the speech is really about his vision — his vision for creating jobs, good-paying union jobs, and really investing in the industries of the future.  But he thinks it’s responsible — it’s the responsible thing to do to propose a way to pay for that over time.


 * Q And what about the estate tax? Is that something you’re also considering increasing?
 * MS. PSAKI: Again, I’m not going to get too far ahead of the President’s own speech and proposal, and I know we’ll be previewing it more in the next 24 hours, but he believes that there’s more that can be done to make the corporate tax code fair; to reward work, not wealth; to ensure that we can invest in the future industries that are going to help all people in this country.


 * Q And one other topic. Twenty-three countries have signed on to the idea of this WHO treaty that would improve information sharing during future pandemics.  Why hasn’t the U.S. signed on to that?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, we believe it’s vital in working with international partners and other countries and, of course, strengthening and reforming our international efforts as it relates to addressing pandemics and future pandemics.


 * Q Does President Biden believe that the millions of Americans who lost loved ones to COVID-19 deserve a better response than the one that they’ve gotten from the WHO?
 * MS. PSAKI: In terms of looking into —


 * Q In terms of the origins for COVID-19.
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I think he believes that the American people, the global community, the medical experts, the doctors — all of the people who have been working to save lives — the families who have lost loved ones — all deserve greater transparency.  They deserve better information.  They deserve steps that are taken by the global community to provide that.


 * Q And that statement says that the U.S. joins these countries in expressing shared concerns. But the statement, quite frankly, is pretty bureaucratic and perhaps does not meet the moment of the seriousness of the crisis here in this country in terms of the death toll.  So what is the White House’s actual reaction to this report from the WHO?  Was it simply inadequate?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, the report is still being reviewed by our team of experts; 17 experts are reviewing it.


 * Q But you know the headline of it, and it’s not sufficient, you’ve said. So —
 * MS. PSAKI: We agree.  And we have long said, as I just stated, it lacks crucial data, information.  It lacks access.  It lacks transparency.  It certainly — we don’t believe that, in our review to date, that it meets the moment, it meets the impact that this pandemic has had on the global community.  And that’s why we also have called for additional forward-looking steps.


 * Q When will the President speak on this?
 * MS. PSAKI: On the WHO report?  I expect we’ll let our review conclude, and then we’ll look for an opportunity for him to speak to it.  But I can certainly confirm for you that he shares these concerns.  They are coming directly from him and directly from our national security team, who has looked at what the report has presented to date.  They’re still reviewing and share the concerns issued in that statement that made those concerns clear.


 * Q Thanks, Jen. I just want to piggyback off of that as well.  World Health Organization Director General Tedros — one of his primary concerns was that the report may have glossed over, if you will, the possibility that the — that the virus escaped from a lab.  Is that a central concern of the White House as well?  And then, when you talk about cooperation, has China not cooperated enough, in the White House’s opinion?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, they have not been transparent.  They have not provided underlying data.  That certainly doesn’t qualify as cooperation.  You know, the analysis performed to date from our experts — you know, or their concern is that there isn’t additional support for one hypothesis.  It doesn’t lead us to any closer of an understanding or greater knowledge than we had six to nine months ago about the origin.  It also doesn’t provide us guidelines or steps — recommended steps on how we should prevent this from happening in the future.  And those are imperative.


 * Q And so that centers on the hypothesis that would involve the lab?
 * MS. PSAKI: Again, it doesn’t — it doesn’t lead to — it doesn’t — it doesn’t provide us greater understanding of the origin of the virus.


 * Q And the second question, just on the next legislative package&colon; Has the President started to reach out to moderates, to centrist Republicans as well, and — to kind of woo them to get ahead of, you know, some of the things that we saw with the last package?
 * MS. PSAKI: “Woo” them?  I like it.


 * Q And last question. The skinny budget is due out this week.  What programs or agencies should we expect to see a boost in funding?
 * MS. PSAKI: I know people love the term “skinny budget,” but is actually just a discretionary guide.  So it should be out soon, and we’ll wait for it to come out, and then I’m sure we’ll have an update from our budget — our OMB team.


 * Q Thank you, Jen. Could you provide a bit more insight into why the White House has felt the need over the last few days to really clarify the Vice President’s role at the border?  Was that something that she requested a clarification on?
 * MS. PSAKI: I actually think that members of the media deserve to have an understanding of what her exact role was.  And the President, when he was the Vice President, played a very specific role too, where he was running point on the Northern Triangle.  He told the story at the press conference last week about how the President called him back from Turkey, I think it was.


 * Q So was the plan always for her to focus on the Northern Triangle countries, the root causes, as opposed to the border? Or did something change?
 * MS. PSAKI: That was always the plan, and that was the announcement.


 * Q Okay.
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I know you guys have done a fair amount of reporting on this, so maybe you’ll have more details.  As I understand it, San Diego Public Schools are opening in early April.


 * Q April 12th, to hybrid learning.
 * MS. PSAKI: Okay.  And students will be back in the classroom.  And as I understand is, this is related —


 * Q Part-time.
 * MS. PSAKI: Part-time.  And certainly, you know our objective from the White House — opening up five days a week, a majority of schools across the country.  And they’re on spring break right now.  And this is related to volunteering or being paid — I’m not even sure; you’d have to ask the local school district — during spring break for these migrant kids?


 * Q Yeah, so the San Diego County Supervisor, Jim Desmond, he says, you know, “I think it’s great that there’s in-person learning for unaccompanied minors from Central America, but I wish every child in San Diego County was allowed the same opportunity for in-person teaching.”
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I’m just saying that context is important.  And these kids are going back to school for hybrid learning.  We, of course, want that to be five days a week, and we’re confident we’ll get there early next month.  And I believe they’re also on spring break right now, so these teachers are — would be vo- — I’m not sure if it’s volunteer or paid; you’d have to ask the local school district — while the kids are on spring break, which I think the context is pretty important.  Okay.


 * Q Okay, and I’ve got one more question, sorry —
 * MS. PSAKI: Oh, go ahead.


 * Q — about space.
 * MS. PSAKI: Go ahead.


 * Q You know, the Biden administration, they just announced its intention to retain the National Space Council, and this is on top of the White House voicing its support for the Space Force —
 * MS. PSAKI: Yeah.


 * Q — NASA’s Artemis program. I mean, these are three programs or policies that President Trump and the Trump administration put in place.  So would it be fair to say that space is one of the — and space policy is one of the few areas where President Biden actually agrees with his predecessor?
 * MS. PSAKI: I think that — that sounds accurate to me. Look, I think the President believes that the National Space Council, as you just conveyed or just asked about, provides an opportunity to generate National Space Policy strategies, synchronize on America’s space activities at a time of unprecedented activity.  It’s also an opportunity to — generated by America’s own activities in space.


 * Q The White House has been talking about a lot of different types of infrastructure over the last few weeks leading up to the announcement tomorrow. Can you give us a sense of what the general breakdown is going to be on, you know, clean energy and climate-type projects versus roads and bridges?
 * MS. PSAKI: I know we will have an extensive factsheet that will break down everything for you.  It is quite —


 * Q I’m giving you the opportunity to get out ahead of the President on this.
 * MS. PSAKI: — quite long.  It is quite long.  And I don’t want to get too far ahead of the President, but I will — let me — let me see if I can give you a little bit more of a breakdown — not in terms of the numbers, but —


 * Q And does the White House have a response to this new Chinese law finalized earlier today that essentially allows them to vet parliamentary candidates in Hong Kong for so-called “non- patriots” to not be allowed to run for office?
 * MS. PSAKI: I know we have certainly expressed concerns about the undemocratic steps of the Chinese government in the past.  I’ll have to check with our national security team.  I had not asked them about this specific piece, but we will get back to you shortly after the briefing.


 * Q So Chuck Schumer is urging people to write an email to the President, the White House in hopes that he will cancel up to $50,000 of student loan debt. Why do you think that Schumer has such a fundamentally different reading of what the President can and should do?  And if you could answer yes or no&colon; Is this — has the President ruled out taking unilateral action on this yet?
 * MS. PSAKI: No, he has not.  I will say that I do have some good student loan news for you, which you didn’t even know you were going to tee up for me.  But we will be expanding the pause on student loan interest and collections to the more than 1 million borrowers who are in default on a loan that was made by a private lender in the old bank-bac- — based loan program known as the Federal Family Education Loan Program.  This step particularly protects 800,000 borrowers who are at risk of having their tax refunds seized.  That’s actually a pretty significant step.


 * Q Do you have a sense of the timing on that — how long those reviews might take?
 * MS. PSAKI: I don’t have an update on the timing.  There’s a legal and a policy review.


 * Q Yes. I always have a question.
 * MS. PSAKI: Of course.


 * Q So, first, just on the infrastructure questions that we were talking about.
 * MS. PSAKI: Yeah.


 * Q You said yesterday that there would be dollar-for-dollar accounting of how the measures would be paid for.
 * MS. PSAKI: Yep.  Paid for over time.  Yep.


 * Q Paid for over time.
 * MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.


 * Q Is the President willing to sign a bill that does not pay dollar for dollar for all of the proposals that he has?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, the President believes it’s responsible to propose a way for paying over time for his vision for investing in infrastructure and our economy and American workers.  There will be a range of views, including how to pay for it.  People will be for or against.  Some people may not want to pay for it.  And he’s open to having those discussions.


 * Q But he is open to deficit financing in a final package. Is that correct?
 * MS. PSAKI: Again, I think — we haven’t even proposed the speech yet.  There’ll be a range of views on Capitol Hill, as we all certainly know.  He’s proposing a way to pay for his proposals over time.  We’ll look forward to hearing from members of Congress on how they want to approach it, given there’s such strong support for infrastructure investment across the country.


 * Q Okay. And just on — a quick one on foreign policy&colon; Iran has come out and basically already rejected a proposal that you haven’t even put on the table yet about relaxing some of the sanctions against them to get them to come to the table.  They say all of the sanctions need to be relaxed before they’ll consider any changes on enrichment.
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, we remain committed to pursuing a diplomatic process to determine a way forward.  Sometimes that takes some time, and we certainly have found that in the past as it relates to negotiations with Iran.


 * Q Thanks, Jen. One quick follow-up on space, and then two others.
 * MS. PSAKI: Sure.


 * Q So, Vice President Pence had a pretty public-facing role with National Space Council. He was, kind of, involved with policy-making.  I know it’s a new — new thing here, but will Vice President Harris have a similar involvement with the Space Council on her end?
 * MS. PSAKI: It’s a great question.  I know it’s — the Space Council technically falls under the Vice President’s team and office.


 * Q Right.
 * MS. PSAKI: I’d have to talk to her team about her public-facing role, and I’m happy to do that.


 * Q Gotcha. One on the ambassadors.  So there is yet to be an appointment for the U.S. Ambassador to China.  There’s been some reporting of these rumors about who’s jockeying — of who that person might be.
 * MS. PSAKI: Yeah.


 * Q Any updates on the appointment time, timeline, or even a shortlist for that posting?
 * MS. PSAKI: I know — I’ve seen a lot of names reported out there — some of which would be great choices — but I don’t have an update on the timeline for announcing the nomination of ambassadors.


 * Q Maybe even before the summertime? Anything broad?
 * MS. PSAKI: Certainly hope so, but I don’t have an update on when the President will make any decisions.


 * Q Okay. And one quick one on the Supreme Court.
 * MS. PSAKI: Okay.


 * Q So, about a year ago, I would say, President Biden — then-candidate Biden committed to putting a black woman on the Supreme Court. Of course, today’s appointments and news kind of generates some buzz on who those folks might be.  Is there any update — anything you could advance for us on Vice — President Biden’s efforts to put a black person on the Supreme Court?  Any kind of shortlist situation to that end?
 * MS. PSAKI: It would require there being an opening on the Supreme Court, of course.


 * Q (Inaudible.)
 * MS. PSAKI: There is not an opening on the Supreme Court.


 * Q I guess, is that commitment still on the table?
 * MS. PSAKI: Of course.  To nominate an African American woman to the Supreme Court?


 * Q Correct.
 * MS. PSAKI: Yes, absolutely.  It certainly is.


 * Q Yes, one more follow-up on the WHO. Is the President disappointed with the WHO?  Does he believe they’re not up to the task?
 * MS. PSAKI: I think what the statement makes clear is that we remain — that — that was issued by the State Department today — is that we remain confident in the role of the WHO.  We look to be a contributing member of the WHO.  We have some concerns as we — as I’ve expressed about the analysis that’s been done so far about the report, and we think that steps can be taken moving forward in the second stage of the review to ameliorate some of those.


 * Q Thank you, Jen. I wanted to ask a few questions. First, I want to follow up on something President Biden said Wednesday when he tasking Vice President Harris with managing root causes of the border crisis.  He said that in addition to doing that, she has, quote, “about five other major things she’s handling.”  Could you clarify what those are?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, first, some of it is — is we have not yet announced yet, so I won’t get ahead of those.  Vice President Harris is playing an imperative role out there connecting with the American people about the American Rescue Plan.  She’s been traveling across the country.  She’s done a number of trips and taken steps — she’s going to be involved in our effort to communicate with the public about COVID and the importance of the effectiveness and efficiency of the vaccine, and we’ll have more to say soon.


 * Q And a quick follow-up on a question asked last week about the White House and the marijuana policy that impacted some fired staffers. You indicated that things might be different if marijuana was federally legal.  Actually, the Democrats in the Senate, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are preparing the bill to end federal prohibition of marijuana.  Does President Biden support that?
 * MS. PSAKI: He spoke about this on the campaign.  He believes in decriminalizing the use of marijuana, but his position has not changed.


 * Q Descheduling them — federally descheduling and an end the federal prohibition?
 * MS. PSAKI:  That’s been his position.  Nothing has changed.


 * Q And regarding the WHO, former President Trump has accused the WHO of being, quote, “a puppet of China.” Does this report confirm that claim?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I think we’ve expressed our concerns about the role — the lack of transparency, the lack of data that has been provided broadly to the global community.  We believe there are steps that can be taken moving forward to ensure that an independent investigation — that global experts are involved in the next stage of this process.  But we also believe that the WHO is a body that the United States should be a part of — that in order to make changes happen, we need to have a seat at the table, and that’s why we rejoined the WHO.


 * Q Thank you very much, Jen. I have one question on Asia and one question on Asian Americans.  We know the Japanese Prime Minister is coming to visit, and also both NSC and State Department are said to host the — their Japanese and South Korean counterparts.  As the representative of a foreign press group, I got a question from NHK.
 * MS. PSAKI: I’m not sure I completely understand your question.  Are you asking if we — how will we discuss China and our relationship with China when the President and others in the administration see leaders from Japan?


 * Q No. I — the East Asian countries have different interests than the U.S. has with China.
 * MS. PSAKI: Sure.


 * Q So how will — how will you have your Asian allies cooperate with you if you have different interests?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, I think, just like the U.S. relationships with any country, there are areas of mutual interests.  There are areas where we can communicate, work together on, even sometimes have disagreements, whether it is economic cooperation or security in the region.  And certainly we’ll — I expect that those conversations should cover a range of topics.


 * Q Okay. On Asian Americans, a question.  We just saw the factsheet that you released earlier —
 * MS. PSAKI: Yeah.


 * Q — but it does not address the demand from AAPI communities for more representation on leadership levels.
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, first, we’ve had a range of conversations with Senator Duckworth since that call which happened about a week ago, including a commitment to naming a high-level Asian American member of the AAPI community to a position in the White House.  And that’s something we’re working to do through consultation with a range of officials and elected officials as well.


 * Q Yeah, I — actually, it’s a good follow-up from what —
 * MS. PSAKI: Sure.


 * Q — Ching-Yi just asked. So thank you, Jen.
 * MS. PSAKI: Sure.


 * Q So as you know, we’ve had a spike in carjackings in Washington, D.C., and there’s been a huge uproar, of course, about the carjacking and killing of a Pakistani American by two teenage girls. Does the President plan any outreach to the AAPI community of Washington, given — given this uproar?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, the President and his administration — he’s asked members of his team — senior levels of his team to be engaged in a broad swath of leaders from the AAPI community from across the country.  I can certainly check if there will be individuals from the D.C. community as a part of that outreach.


 * Q Okay. And given that there’s been this spike in carjackings here in Washington, has the White House put any gui- — out any guidance to staff who, of course, work in Washington — many live in Washington?  Has there been anything on that?
 * MS. PSAKI: I think we would certainly defer to local law enforcement and guidance along those lines.  I’m not aware of any additional guidance being put out.


 * Q Yeah, well, during his press conference last week, the President was very stern and expressive when it came to expressing his opinion about the so-called “voter suppression laws” in Georgia and elsewhere. But what tangible action will the President take to turn that tide, particularly when you’re talking about a federal bill facing an uphaul [sic] — uphill climb in the Senate?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, there’s a number of actions.  One, I wouldn’t call it “so-called bias,” because we know that in communities across Georgia there have been polling places that have been closed; those are in predominantly African American communities.  So I think that is real bias.


 * Q How is the White House engaging the faith community when it comes to gun control?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, many members of the faith community have been quite outspoken historically about — about the threats of gun violence that have impacted communities across the country.  Certainly, that would come from our Office of Public Engagement, who would lead these efforts to outreach to a range of communities.  I can check with them and see if there’s any specific meetings with the fai- — with faith groups in recent days.


 * Q And lastly —
 * MS. PSAKI: Oh, go ahead.


 * Q Yeah, is there anything to be read into, sort of, the rebranding of the Biden administration’s — the Biden-Harris administration? Has —
 * MS. PSAKI: Is it a rebranding?


 * Q Well, when you look on the website, it’s, you know, not — it’s “Biden–Harris,” and that’s not been necessarily the norm in the past. Is there any message being sent by that?  Or what’s meant to be — what can be extrapolated from it?
 * MS. PSAKI: I would take from it that Vice President Harris is an important partner.  She’s the first in the room and the last in the room on most occasions, if she’s in town and not traveling around the country.  It’s a reflection of the important role that she will play moving forward.


 * Q In speaking with several governors’ offices that were on the call with the White House this morning, it’s come to our attention that there were not a lot of questions or, really, any questions or pushback on the comments yesterday from both the President and Dr. Walensky, you know, advising state and local governments against rolling back mask mandates.
 * MS. PSAKI: I don’t think we see it that way, Jeff, but I would say that one of the ways we can impact people across the country is by acknowledging this is hard.  We’ve been at war with this virus for a long time.  And to reiterate, as the President did yesterday, as Dr. Walensky did yesterday, that we continue to be at war with the virus.  But the way we feel we can be most impactful is not just through words but is through actions.


 * Q Is there enough concern from governors, based on the call this morning, do you believe?
 * MS. PSAKI: I was not on the call this morning.  I think the President is speaking not just to governors but to people across the country, to business owners, to local elected officials.  There are — even in some states where governors have been pulling back the restrictions, there are local leaders and local businesses or bigger businesses who have kept them in place.


 * Q Thanks, Jen. Today, Canada halted delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine.  What does that mean for this administration’s posture towards that particular vaccine and the vaccine’s prospects of approval here in the U.S?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, approval would, of course, be through the FDA, and they have a rigorous and thorough process for doing that.  So I will leave that to them to undergo that process.  And I don’t have anything to predict about the approval likelihood.


 * Q Thank you, Jen.
 * MS. PSAKI: Thank you.  Want to go one more?


 * Q Sure. One more vaccine question.
 * MS. PSAKI: Okay.


 * Q Given the increased urgency and the fact that millions of Johnson & Johnson vaccines are on the near-term horizon, is the White House considering changing the way it deploys those vaccines, since those kick in so much quicker than the other vaccines out there?
 * MS. PSAKI: The Johnson & Johnson vaccines?


 * Q Yeah. Are you sticking to the same per capita distribution, or is there any thought about changing the way those are distributed?
 * MS. PSAKI: Well, we think a lot about how to ensure vaccines are distributed equitably across the country.  But our message continues to be: You should take any vaccine that is available to you.  There are three approved.  They’re all safe; they’re all effective.  So we’re not changing our approach at this point in time.

Thank you, everyone.

1:28 P.M. EDT