Folks, it happened. D.C.’s biggest ice cream fan, most enthusiastic former Amtrak commuter, and President of the United States supports statehood for the District, per White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

The statement – the first time since Joe Biden was inaugurated that his team confirmed his position on the subject – came at a press briefing on Thursday, when a reporter asked Psaki about the fight for D.C. statehood in light of a planned House Oversight committee hearing on Monday.

“Does he think [statehood] could — if it passes the House — does it have a chance in the Senate given the filibuster situation right now, and what would he or the White House say to the critics who suggest that this is designed to be a Democratic Party power grab, just to get a few more seats in the House and the Senate?” the reporter asked.

Psaki almost stuck the landing.

“I think he would say that the half a million people who live in D.C. — am I getting that number right? It’s grown since I left and went to the suburbs — would argue with that point, and so would he,” she said. “He believes they deserve representation. That’s why he supports D.C. statehood.” (To quibble a little, D.C. had more than 700,000 residents as of July 2019, even if Jen Psaki has since abandoned ship.)

Biden previously expressed support for statehood on the campaign trail last summer.

The president has been getting some not-so-subtle hints about the subject since his welcome back to the city from his neighbors in the Wilson Building down Pennsylvania Ave.: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and her administration.

As early as January 6 — before the violent events of that day transpired — Bowser tweeted a statement pushing for a statehood bill within the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.

“Washingtonians have waited over 200 years for the representation we deserve as American citizens,” she wrote. “To paraphrase Dr. King: when any American is denied democracy, our entire nation is denied those voices and those votes.”

The Bowser administration did not immediately return a request for comment.

The White House’s endorsement of D.C. statehood on Thursday comes as the so-called “filibuster situation” plays out in the Senate. With a razor-thin majority in the Senate, Democrats are hamstrung from ending debate and voting on legislation that requires a 60-vote majority in order to defeat a filibuster from the Republican minority.

A bill to grant D.C. statehood that was introduced in the House last year by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton passed 232-180. Earlier this year, a group of Democratic senators introduced its companion bill in the Senate.

Some Democrats support abolishing the filibuster entirely, but others have remained more cautious. In the press briefing on Thursday, reporters asked White House communications director Kate Bedingfield questions about Biden’s stance on the filibuster issue — and Bedingfield didn’t rule out Biden supporting a change to the Senate rules.

“What the president is not going to do…is to allow progress and allow benefits to the American people to be held hostage in the process,” she said. “His goal is to ensure that we can get things done for the American people, and he’s open to a discussion about what that looks like.”

Only time will tell if it’s all malarkey, or if D.C. will ultimately have to change its license plate slogan.