Biden on GOP Challenging Mandates: ‘Have at It’
"Vaccination requirements in schools were nothing new," president says
Republicans have begun pushing back against the vaccine and mask-related mandates President Biden announced this week at the White House.
The Republican National Committee is suing the Biden administration over the forthcoming emergency regulation to mandate that employers with at least 100 workers require those employees be vaccinated — or produce weekly negative COVID tests.
And further challenges may well be forthcoming.
All of which is fine with Biden.
“Have at it. Look, I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here. This isn’t a game. And I don’t know of any scientist out there in this field that doesn’t think it makes considerable sense to do the six things I’ve suggested,” the president said Friday, referring to the six-point plan he had outlined the day before. “Let me conclude with this. One of the lessons I hope our students can unlearn is that politics doesn’t have to be this way. Politics doesn’t have to be this way. They’re growing up in an environment where they see it’s like a war, like a bitter feud. If a Democrat says right, everybody says left. If a Democrat says left, they say right. It’s not who we are as a nation. And it’s not how we beat every other crisis in our history. We’ve got to come together.
“And I think the vast majority — look at the polling data — the vast majority of the American people know we have to do these things. They’re hard, but necessary. We’re going to get them done,” Biden added.
Governments have been mandating vaccinations of children for a variety of illnesses for them to be able to go to school for decades, Biden noted.
“The vaccinations of our educators, today about 90 percent of school staff and teachers are vaccinated, we should have that at 100 percent,” he said. “We’re requiring vaccinations for teachers, where I have authority to require it, who work in U.S. government and educators at Head Start, which is a federal program, because it’s funded by the federal government.
“But I’m calling on all governors to require vaccinations for all teachers and staff. Vaccination requirements in schools were nothing new. They work. They’re overwhelmingly supported by educators and their unions,” Biden added.
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