“White House officials have repeatedly stressed that any further extension of the mask mandate would be made by the CDC,” Alex and Erin write. And that suggests a few interesting options for the administration:

If the administration doesn’t appeal:

As a matter of credibility, it risks hurting the institutional authority of the CDC, which they said would be central to the decision-making process. It also raises the question of why the administration just re-upped the mandate if this was really the policy it wanted.

But politically, it takes a tough issue off the White House’s plate. Democrats have already been moving away from mask mandates for months, saying it’s time for folks to get back to normal. The move by the court makes that decision for them.