![](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210706162657-02-biden-covid-remarks-0706-super-tease.jpg)
How did we find out this information, you ask? Axios broke the story, which was quickly confirmed by CNN and virtually every other major media outlet. The White House had said nothing about it. Not a word — until after, of course, the news had been reported. Which is a problem.
Almost a year later, Biden held a news conference as president in which he referenced why he had run for the nation’s top office: “I said, ‘I’m running for three reasons: to restore the soul, dignity, honor, honesty, transparency to the American political system.’ “
None of this is to make an apples-to-apples comparison between Trump’s utter lack of transparency and what the Biden administration did regarding its latest Covid-19 case.
But again, Biden pledged to be far BETTER than Trump on issues of transparency. And that matters when we are talking about people who work in and around the White House.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, when asked directly about Covid-19 breakthrough cases in the building on Tuesday, tried to tread a VERY fine line.
On Wednesday, under pressure, the White House shifted policy. Psaki said that going forward the White House would release Covid-19 cases when the person infected is determined to have come into close contact with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or their spouses.
The Point: With the Delta variant surging and mask mandates being reinstated, it’s up to the White House to lead on the transparency issue. And they simply aren’t doing it.