Biden mixes up Title 42, federal mask mandate in response to reporter question

President Biden on Thursday gave a confusing response to a reporter's question about his administration's immigration policy, answering with comments related to the question and about the administration's COVID-19 mandate that was struck down earlier this week by a federal judge in Florida.

The reporter asked Biden about "delaying lifting Title 42," the decades-old federal law the Trump administration used to keep asylum seekers out of the U.S. to prevent the spread of the virus. 

"No," Biden said. "First of all, there’s going to be an appeal by the Justice Department, because as a matter of principle we want to be in a position where if in fact it is strongly concluded by the scientists that we need Title 42, that we would be able to do that, but there has been no decision on extending Title 42."

The department is working on appealing the judge's ruling on the mask mandate, not Title 42.

In a follow up statement, clarifying his comments, Biden said: "I want to clarify that, in comments at the conclusion of my remarks this morning, I was referring to the CDC’s mask mandate and there is no Department of Justice action on Title 42."