Why did Biden feel the need to lie about his plot to hand out $450,000 to separated illegal aliens?

The Biden administration is in talks to offer *illegal alien* families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter

The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. 

“That’s not going to happen,” the president said at a press conference at the White House.

In response to a Fox News reporter’s question on the proposed settlement, Biden said the report of the payments — first published in The Wall Street Journal — was “garbage.”

When the ACLU forced Biden’s hand by broadcasting the negotiations, Biden reversed and was forced to admit the truth. So why did Biden lie in the first place?

Because, outside the media and activist Twitter, handing out $450,000 per illegal alien is wildly unpopular as a new survey by Convention of States Action reveals.

66.9% of American voters oppose the move, and 56% strongly oppose it. Only 18.7% approve and of those only 8.7% strongly approve.

But the breakdown is full of bad news and worse news.

67.5 percent of Independent voters do not approve while only 9.3 percent approve. Considering Biden’s collapse among independent voters which helped cost Democrats some recent elections, this is really bad news. 
 
But the news is bad even among Dems where 45.8% don’t approve and only 36.4% do approve.

When the majority of your own base opposes your policy, it’s bad.