Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday slammed President Joe Biden‘s new vaccination mandate, saying, “America is about freedom.”
Biden’s announcement of the mandate, which will cover about 80 million private-sector employees, represented a fundamental misunderstanding of core American values, Pence said, urging the president to “lead by example” by “encourag[ing] people to take the vaccine.”
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“I have to tell you the president’s speech yesterday was unlike anything I had ever heard from an American president,” Pence told Fox News Friday morning. “I mean, to have the president of the United States say that he has been ‘patient’ but his ‘patience is wearing thin.’ That’s not how the American people expect to be spoken to by our elected leaders.”
BIDEN TO IMPOSE VACCINE MANDATES FOR BIG-COMPANY EMPLOYEES AND HEALTHCARE WORKERS
Through the mandate, administered by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, employers with 100 or more workers could be fined up to $14,000 for every violation. While large businesses will maintain the alternative of weekly COVID-19 testing, executive branch employees and contractors who do business with the federal government must get vaccinated without the option of testing.
Biden’s decision on Thursday was met with fiery condemnation by Republican leaders, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, the latter claiming that the president’s “dictatorial approach is wrong, un-American, and will do far more harm than good.”
Mike Pence says on #FoxandFriends that Biden is dividing America by not giving Trump credit on COVID, “The Biden administration…with their unwillingness to give Trump and our administration the credit for operation warp speed has simply caused more division in the country.” pic.twitter.com/D3pgWMiVvP
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 10, 2021
Pence, who led the White House coronavirus task force during the Trump administration, also accused Democratic leaders of hypocrisy, pointing to an October 2020 debate in which then-Sen. Kamala Harris claimed that she did not trust vaccination advice stemming from former President Donald Trump.
“They spent the whole last year undermining public confidence in the vaccine,” Pence said of the Democratic campaign for the White House. “If you remember my vice presidential debate, I called out Kamala Harris. I said, ‘You have got to stop playing politics with people’s lives.’ She said she wouldn’t take a vaccine that President Trump had created.” Harris did say she would take the vaccine “if public health professionals” recommended it.
The former vice president also criticized Biden’s “catastrophic” withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disgrace, and it never had to happen. … It also set aside the deal that President Trump and our administration had negotiated with the Taliban,” he said, later adding, “What was missing with the Biden administration … was a credible threat of the use of force.”
Biden has partially faulted the deal that Trump cut with the Taliban for the surge of troops preceding the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, saying his hands were tied after the U.S. was left with too few troops to both defend U.S. interests and airlift people out. The U.S. surged thousands of troops to Afghanistan following the Taliban’s Aug. 15 takeover of Kabul before withdrawing all forces ahead of Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, abandoning at least 100 U.S. citizens, officials say.
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The handling of COVID-19 and Afghanistan, along with the surging number of migrants crossing the southern border, economic concerns, and rising crime rates, have all contributed to a drop in Biden’s approval rating, which has dipped to record lows since the beginning of his presidency.
Pence, who has been floated as a 2024 contender, has vowed to be “very active” in the 2022 midterm elections, where Republicans are poised to gain congressional seats, experts believe.
