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As of late Tuesday, though, it remained unclear how hard President Joe Biden might fight the ruling. The Justice Department said in a statement it would appeal the recent ruling if the CDC deemed it necessary. The CDC was noncommittal.

\"CDC continues to recommend that people wear masks in all indoor public transportation settings. We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,\" the agency said in a statement.

The biggest hint though came from Biden himself. With the clock ticking toward the May 3 deadline, Biden suggested to reporters that a legal fight on masks wasn't his priority.

When asked if people should continue to wear masks on planes, Biden responded tersely: \"That's up to them.\"

Several legal experts told ABC that the Biden administration might not want to pursue a legal challenge for both pragmatic and political reasons. For one, by the time any kind of legal wrangling takes place, the administration might be willing to let the mask mandate expire anyway.

Another factor is that the case would likely have to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, where a favorable ruling isn't a sure bet. The high court's conservative majority has ruled against federal powers on other pandemic-era restrictions related to housing evictions and vaccine mandates for private industry.

Also, many Americans simply don't like the mandate.

\"Politically and legally, the administration is not going to have a lot of incentive to pursue this,\" said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News contributor and former Justice Department official during the Trump administration.

\"PHOTO:
Courtesy Brooke Tansley
PHOTO: Brooke Tansley with her 8 month old son Russo and her 4 year old daughter Clara in this undated file photo.
>

Jeffrey Lubbers, a professor of administrative law at American University's Washington College of Law, said he thinks the Florida judge's ruling was \"highly questionable\" and that there's ample room to challenge it. But whether the administration fights to defend the mandate would probably have more to do with preserving the federal government's power to prevent the spread of communicable diseases -- a power that could be useful in the future.

\"This mandate is supposed to expire in two weeks, and it's also an unpopular mandate. So, it it worth going to court?\" he said. But on the flip side, \"what happens in two or three months if there's a new variant and we have a ruling on the books that says CDC can't regulate this? The government has a political calculation here too.\"

Isgur said it's possible the administration also is considering the upside of having a court ruling to blame if COVID cases increase as a result of the mandate being lifted.

\"At some point, the pandemic restrictions had to end, and no one wants to be left holding the bag,\" she said.

As for Tansley, she said she hopes people will be compassionate and consider the immunocompromised and families like hers whose kids remain unprotected. She also doesn't know how her family will get home next week and whether they'll make the decision to fly again.

\"It made me sad and upset to know that my family and my coworker's safety have been put at risk because of one powerful person ... and then a pilot who made a call to change the policy in mid-flight. It was something that could have easily waited,\" she said.

ABC News' Justin Gomez, Cheyenne Haslett and Amanda Maile contributed to this report.

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