Usually, when either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris commits a screw-up (which is often), their frenzied (and likely exhausted) handlers are on standby to play clean-up/translator with the mainstream media in hopes that they can mitigate the damage caused by whatever incoherent message Biden has delivered or word salad Harris managed to get out between the cackling.

The same holds true for any action either of them takes that goes contra to how they’ve advised their political opponents and average Americans to conduct themselves.

But every once in a while not even their minders can explain away something their bosses said and/or did, which brings me to the appearance Harris made Friday at the National Urban League annual conference.

As we previously reported, one of the first things Harris did when she walked onto the stage was to take her mask off and hug Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin, who was also maskless.

The problem with this is that Biden, as we all know, has COVID, and Harris is considered a “close contact” of Biden’s. Because of that, she is supposed to be masked when she’s around other people per the CDC’s guidelines, you know, the ones we common folks are supposed to follow according to them. And yet this happened:

Kamala Harris — who the White House said yesterday was a "close contact" with Biden and his COVID diagnosis — walks on stage, immediately removes her mask, and hugs the moderator. pic.twitter.com/4eBTxSDq4M

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 22, 2022

Refreshingly, during the Friday press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Biden COVID Response Coordinator Ashish Jha were grilled by multiple reporters as to why Harris wasn’t masked when the CDC very clearly says that she should be.

Watch below as Jha struggles to come up with an answer that makes sense. At one point he got so desperate he tried to bow out by saying he really couldn’t comment on something he hadn’t personally seen. He even looked to Jean-Pierre for assistance but she ended up deferring right back to him because she couldn’t explain it, either:

.@MJ_Lee: "CDC guidance said that, if you're close contact…wear a…mask when…around other people. [Harris] just spoke at a conference…& she hugged someone w/o a mask on. She was also maskless for most of" her visit.

Reporters piled on as Jha & KJP were NOT ready. pic.twitter.com/A1NMR4Uta3

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 22, 2022

The White House’s bungled messaging on why Harris failed to follow the CDC’s protocols comes just one day after Biden was diagnosed with COVID but was then photographed in a room maskless while staring at a phone and holding what appeared to be a blank notebook, though he too should have been wearing a mask according to CDC guidelines since at least one other person was in the room (the photographer).

When Jean-Pierre was asked by a reporter during the Thursday briefing about why Biden wasn’t abiding by the CDC guidelines as he has repeatedly urged Americans to do in order to contain the coronavirus, her answer, incredibly, was to state that “he took off his mask so that the American people could see him and see directly that work he is doing.”

Though the collective intelligence of the American people continues to be insulted by this administration, fortunately, it appears that even some in the mainstream media are no longer content to allow the White House’s COVID mask theater to proceed as normal without question anymore. The walls are – at last – crumbling. Brick by brick.

It’s about time.

Related: ‘Dr.’ Jill Hits a New Low as Biden White House Close to Hitting Rock Bottom