If you thought that Joe Biden’s announcement about vaccine mandates on Thursday was dictatorial, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wants you to know that Biden isn’t done yet.
Murthy went on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash and announced that Biden would be taking “more actions as we continue to work on in the days ahead and especially on the global front, where we will be taking steps.” Does Biden not only think he’s king here, but king of the world?
‘And the president will be making announcements ahead of the U.N. General Assembly about additional measures that we’re taking to help vaccinate the world,’ the Surgeon General continued.
‘So there’s a lot that’s been done, a lot that we’re doing now, a lot more we will continue to do,’ he said. ‘And this is what we have to do ultimately to tackle the Delta variant.
Bash pressed him on if Biden was going to be imposing mandates on travel, which could implicate other constitutional questions, but while Murthy indicated that was something they were looking at, he said there were important “equity concerns” hindering that. “We need to find a safe way for that to happen.”
Murthy didn’t specify what actions Biden would be taking this week.
Murthy also went on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” and tried to argue that the OSHA rule by which they are seeking to control private businesses was “normal.”
“These are steps that we take every day that OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, oversees. So this is not an unusual phenomenon. What it is, is, I think, an appropriate response for us to recognize that if we want our economy to be back, and we want our schools to stay in session.”
Stephanopoulos noted that legal experts had pointed out it was not normal, that indeed it was a “novel” use and that legal experts questioned it. As we reported, there are a lot of legal questions about it.
Murthy tried to argue they wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t think it was legal. He apparently wasn’t listening when his boss made it clear he knew there were legal issues with his eviction moratorium order, but was issuing it anyway to buy time.
But he tried to argue that people shouldn’t be planning resistance to Biden’s new orders.
“Our enemy is the virus. It is not one another, and what we have to do is approach this next phase of the pandemic response recognizing that we’ve got to listen to each other before we rush to judgment. We’ve got to support one another in our decision-making and during times of crisis.”
Just like Biden listened to everyone before he issued these orders, right? Murthy tried to use 9/11 to justify an unconstitutional action with Stephanopoulos, saying that we came together to get things done then. Not a good look to try to exploit that to justify this action now.
Biden has already sparked a massive backlash with the announcement of his mandates — requiring that federal employees be vaccinated, that contractors who do work for the federal government be vaccinated, that private businesses with over 100 employees require all employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, and that health facilities that get Medicare or Medicaid will have to be vaccinated.
We reported that many governors have come out against the mandates, with some saying they would take Biden to court. Some 27 states have now come out against it, in statements from their governors or attorney generals: Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.