The White House is confident its sweeping vaccine mandate, covering millions of private and public sector workers, will not exacerbate snarled supply chains before the holidays.
“If you’re asking if we think the rules [will] impact supply chains, the answer is no, we don’t think that it will,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday.
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The White House was also sure its regulations would withstand legal challenges from Republican state attorneys general, among others.
“Why are they getting in the way of trying to protect and save lives?” Jean-Pierre asked.
The White House announced this week it was streamlining the date by which a large swathe of the federal workforce and employees of businesses that hire more than 100 people will have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing unless they are a healthcare provider.
Under guidance issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, workers will now have until Jan. 4 to get their shots, as will federal employees and contractors.
“We wanted to make it easier, we wanted to avoid confusion, and so we wanted to even the playing field,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre, principal deputy press secretary, defended Biden, too, from Democratic criticism that his $1.75 trillion social welfare and climate framework was too far-reaching, overreaching the governing mandate he was given by voters in the 2020 election.
“The president has been talking about his ‘Build Back Better’ agenda for over a year,” she said. “This is not too much. This is what needs to happen, and it should have happened decades ago.”
At the same time, Jean-Pierre provided scant details on what Biden was doing to unite his “Big Tent” party behind his proposal, including his weekend travel schedule.
“I think we’re in a good place to move forward, and we’ll continue to have conversations,” she said.
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“They’ve been partners in this but, when it comes to the mechanics of the House and the mechanics of the Senate, he leaves that to Speaker Pelosi, he leaves that to leader Schumer,” she added, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
