President Joe Biden is willing to consider calling in the National Guard to help alleviate supply-chain issues that threaten to leave voters with unfilled orders as the holiday shopping season begins.
Biden discussed the stresses faced by consumers and many industries during the pandemic as he spoke at a town hall meeting on CNN Thursday night.
“Yes, absolutely, positively, I would do that,” Biden said in response to a question about deploying the National Guard to help.
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The National Guard has been frequently been utilized to deal with worker shortages and other problems during the pandemic, as critical public safety employees fell ill and now as some cities are reporting high raw numbers, if low percentages, running afoul of new vaccine mandates.
Biden has tried to stress his administration’s efforts to get ports running 24/7 and other initiatives to address global supply-chain issues that threaten to augment the inflationary pressures on the economy.
At the same time, his White House has been criticized for treating these matters as a “high-class problem” that can be dismissed as temporary treadmill delivery delays.
Not long after Biden’s National Guard answer, however, the White House appeared to pour cold water on the idea.
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“Requesting the use of the national guard at the state level is under the purview of governors and we are not actively pursuing the use of the National Guard on a federal level,” CNN quoted a White House official as saying.
The network held the town hall event with Biden in Baltimore, where he discussed his “Build Back Better” agenda and other proposals.
