“This was an idea that came to mind last year in the Trump administration – the public health agencies recommended it, President Trump banned it for some reason,” Klain told Lester Holt at NBC. “We want to get this back on track. Hopefully in the next few days, or next week, we may be able to name some progress on this.”
The convenience of Biden’s administration regarding the proposal comes after U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Rochelle Walensky appeared to question whether he was wearing American masks for sure to convince those not. were already wearing them. When asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper last week if it made sense for the federal government to send masks to American homes, she replied “It’s not entirely clear to me that this is why people don’t wear masks because they don’t have access to them. “
“Certainly, I would strongly advocate for those in areas where they do not have adequate facilities and cannot afford masks or do not have access to masks, we need to ensure that people are protected,” Walensky continued. ‘But it’s not entirely clear to me that the challenge of wearing a mask is accessibility. ”
On Thursday, Klain again defended the administration ‘s target of vaccinating 100 million people for Covid – 19 in its first 100 days, telling Holt that “we are trying to ramp up vaccine production and circulation. – we will have more to say about the targets that follow. ”
Klain reiterated Holt’s point that the Trump administration managed to deliver 1 million doses of vaccine per day, saying that “the Trump administration hit a million strokes a day one day out of 40.”
“A question has been raised about whether these surveys should go to people who make $ 200,000, $ 300,000,” Klain said. “I think if Congress has ideas on how you can target this to ensure that working people, middle-class people, in this country get those surveys, we’re fine with that. that idea. “
“What we are going to do is leave big middle class oaths, and of course we are not going to jeopardize and reduce the number of such inspections,” he said.
About 78% of households would be eligible for relief payments under the Republican proposal, while 95% would be eligible under the Biden proposal, according to analysts at Penn Wharton’s Budget Model, who warned that the figures are predictive since there is no statutory text formal still available.
Katie Lobosco from CNN and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.