During Sunday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ron Klain, former Vice President Joe Biden’s pick to be White House chief of staff, signaled a nationwide mask mandate would be forthcoming in a new Biden administration.
Klain argued in the meantime that state governments should impose mask mandates.
“It’s a very grave situation. Back in September, then-candidate Joe Biden warned America was headed to a very dark winter if the administration didn’t step up its action. And the very first business day of his transition on Monday of this week, the president-elect met with his COVID task force and made a public statement afterwards where he called on all Americans to mask up. He urged governors to impose masking mandates now and reiterated the fact when he becomes president, he will impose one on a nationwide basis.”
“Look, he’s not the president now,” Klain continued. “There’s not that much Joe Biden can do right now to change things other than to reiterate the message you heard from Dr. Osterholm, which is that all Americans and our state and local governments need to step up right now. If the president and administration’s not going to lead, that’s where the leadership has to come from. That will change on January 20. But right now, we have a crisis that’s getting worse. You know, we had never had a day with 100,000 cases in a single day until last week. By next week, we may see 200,000 cases in a single day. So, this is getting much worse, Chuck.”
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