President Joe Biden announced this week that he will require private businesses with 100 or more employees to vaccinate their workforces or else face fines of up to $14,000 per violation.
Under the president’s new order, private companies will be required to give staff paid time off to get the vaccine. Employees will also have the option to test negative for the coronavirus every week.
“[N]early 80 million Americans not vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday. “In a country as large as ours, that’s 25% minority. That 25% can cause a lot of damage, and they are. The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack or pancreatitis or cancer.
He added, “Our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.”
The president also announced he is making vaccinations mandatory for all federal employees.
In other words, Biden and his White House lied. Again. The president explicitly promised he “wouldn’t demand” that anyone get the vaccine.
In December 2020, after winning the presidential election, Biden was asked point-blank by a reporter, “Do you want vaccines to be mandatory?”
“No, I don’t think it should be mandatory,” Biden responded. “I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory.”
He added, “But I would do everything in my power, just like I don’t think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide, I’ll do everything in my power as president of the United States to encourage people to do the right thing and, when they do it, demonstrate that it matters.”
In making a liar of himself, Biden has also retroactively made a liar of White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, both of whom promised the federal government wouldn’t attempt to force vaccination on anyone.
“There will be no nationwide mandate,” Walensky said in July, cleaning up earlier comments that some (correctly, as it turns out) interpreted as her saying the White House would push for mandatory vaccinations. “I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.”
Meanwhile, Psaki was asked that same month whether there should be more vaccine mandates at the local level.
“That’s not a decision that we’re making,” she told reporters. “That is not our intention from the federal government. There will be decisions made by private sector entities, by universities, by educational institutions, and even perhaps by local leaders, should they decide that is how to keep their community safe.”
Psaki added, “If they decide to make that decision, we certainly support them in that step.”
The White House press secretary was also asked in July whether the federal government would move to issue vaccine mandates.
“[T]hat’s not the role of the federal government,” Psaki responded. “That is the role that institutions, private-sector entities, and others may take. That certainly is appropriate.”
On Thursday, just before Biden made his big announcement, a journalist asked Psaki whether “the Department of Labor or anybody else” can compel major employers to force vaccine mandates on employees.
“Yes,” the press secretary responded. “Stay tuned.”
