President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were recently caught on camera violating Washington, D.C.’s indoor mask mandate while eating at a high-end Italian seafood restaurant.
The couple was seen and photographed walking maskless through the Georgetown restaurant while surrounded by Secret Service officers and diners in masks.
The Bidens dined at the pricey Fiola Mare restaurant on the Potomac River after attending Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown.
During the delta variant surge, Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C.’s Democratic mayor, reinstated an indoor mask mandate in July.
Bowser was seen hours before the mask mandate went into effect without a mask during her birthday celebration with comedian Dave Chappelle.
The Bidens apparently violated the city and restaurant’s mask policy.
It reads, “Per CDC guidance and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s executive order, all individuals over age two are required to wear a mask indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Masks must always be worn while in our restaurants, except while eating and drinking. Thank you for understanding.”
According to Bowser’s executive order, establishments that fail to enforce it face potential fines, warnings, or the revocation of business licenses.
The violation comes after months of the Biden administration touting the importance and need for masks in slowing the spread of Covid-19 despite the individual’s vaccination status.
The Bidens’ behavior echoed that of Mayor Bowser, who has been photographed repeatedly flouting her mask mandates.
She prompted a backlash as recently as September when she tweeted a photo of her unmasked face with a group of women at an indoor Jack and Jill summit.
In addition to the Bidens and Bowser, the incident mirrors the mask mandate scandal of Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, who defied his mask mandate at an upscale restaurant.
Newsom was seen along with his wife dining at the pricey French Laundry sans mask while dining shoulder-to-shoulder indoors at the birthday party for Jason Kinney, longtime Newsom advisor, and lobbyist.
In addition to the maskless birthday celebration, Mayor Bowser was again seen without a mask only hours after her mandate went into effect at an indoor wedding reception.
When questioned at the daily press briefing, Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, defended Biden’s decision not to wear a mask, framing it as “moments in time that don’t reflect overarching policy.”
D.C. requires restaurant customers to wear masks if they are not actively drinking or eating.
Psaki explained that, “I think what you are referring to is a photo of them walking out of a restaurant after they had eaten, mask in hand — where they had not yet put them back on yet. I would say, of course, there are moments when we all don’t put masks on as quickly as we should.”
Continuing, Psaki added, “I don’t think we should lose the forest for the trees here — in that our objective here is to get more people vaccinated, make sure that schools and companies around the country can put in place requirements to save more lives and keep more people safer.”
