White House: Using National Guard for supply chain crisis is not ‘under active consideration’

The White House on Friday said using the National Guard to help deal with the supply chain issues is not currently being considered. 

“Any president has the ability to use the National Guard from the federal level. Requesting the use of the National Guard at the state level, which is often how its done, is under the preview of governors and we’re not actively asking them to do that and we’re not actively pursuing the use of the National Guard on a federal level,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked to clarify where discussions are in terms of using the National Guard.

“But it is something that any president would have the capacity to do, the authority to do, but it is not something under active consideration,” she added. 

The president at a CNN town hall on Thursday evening said he would “absolutely” consider having the National Guard help, adding that he first wants to get the ports up and running. 

The White House last week announced that the Port of Los Angeles, as well as FedEx, UPS and Walmart, will rev up operations to 24 hours a day, seven days a week to tackle the supply chain disruptions.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Biden at the town if he would consider having those serving in the National Guard drive trucks amid a record high truck driver shortage. 

“The answer is yes, if we can’t move to increase the number of truckers, which we’re in the process of doing,” the president said.