Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday blasted President Joe Biden’s plans for sweeping vaccine mandates, vowing that his administration will fight to protect Americans’ jobs from the Biden administration’s brazen overreach.
During a veterans’ appreciation event at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a reporter asked the Republican governor to respond to Biden’s Thursday remarks on a federal vaccine mandate.
“I would just say generally when you’re taking action that’s unconstitutional, that threatens the jobs of the people in my state — many, many thousands of jobs — I’m standing for them,” DeSantis said, vowing to “protect their jobs against federal overreach.”
“This is a guy who criticizes the state of Florida for protecting parents’ rights. He says school boards should be able to eliminate parents’ rights and force five-year-old kids to wear masks all day. That’s what he thinks is appropriate government,” he said, blasting the 78-year-old president for attempting to roll out his “unprecedented mandate.” DeSantis noted that “even his [Biden’s] own people have acknowledged in the past is not constitutional.”
“That’s not leadership,” he said, criticizing Biden for failing to take responsibility for his shortfalls.
President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room at the White House, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, in Washington. Biden is announcing sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
“And I think the problem I have with Joe Biden, more than anything, this guy doesn’t take responsibility for anything. He’s always trying to blame other people, blame other states,” DeSantis said.
“This is a guy that promised when he ran for president, that he would shut down the virus,” he continued, noting that daily coronavirus cases are up over 300 percent from this time last year, despite the reinstitution of mask mandates in certain areas of the country, as well as the widespread availability of vaccines.
‘”His policies are not working,” the Republican governor continued, warning that Biden’s plan is going to be “very destructive” to the livelihoods of Americans, as well as “disruptive to our Constitutional system and the rule of law.”
He continued:
And so these are times when you believe in that Constitution, you got to stand up and obviously the substantive issues’ important because there are places that are going to toss aside people who’ve worked, they’ve worked this whole time throughout COVID. Now all of a sudden they should be tossed aside? They were working when nobody had vaccine, you don’t know their history. You don’t know why they’re making decisions that they’re making. Many of these people have already recovered and they have immunity. The idea that somehow you have somebody that gets a Johnson and Johnson, they can work, but someone that’s got natural immunity somehow can’t?
“That natural immunity is strong. So it’s not based on science. And you can say, he’s saying, he’s losing patience with people. You know, at the end of the day, we don’t live with a one-person rule in this country,” DeSantis continued, referencing Biden’s scolding of unvaccinated Americans during his Thursday speech, in which the president said “patience is wearing thin” with the unvaccinated.
“We live in a Constitutional system, which people’s rights are respected, but particularly in this juncture, their livelihoods and their jobs have to be protected,” DeSantis continued, warning that the mandate could result in a mass exodus of workers in key sectors — hospitals, particularly.
MIRAMAR, FLORIDA – DECEMBER 14: Diana Carolina, a pharmacist at Memorial Healthcare System, receives a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine from Monica Puga, ARNP at Memorial Healthcare System, on December 14, 2020 in Miramar, Florida. The hospital system announced it will be vaccinating their frontline workers that are in contact with COVID-19 patients. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Biden’s mandates, DeSantis concluded, are “totally counterproductive,” and he expressed confidence that they will not survive in court.
“But before that, there needs to be action taken to protect the people of our state and hopefully the entire United States,” DeSantis added. “Nobody should lose their job based on this decision.”
DeSantis’s remarks followed Biden’s decisive speech, in which he pitted vaccinated Americans against unvaccinated Americans and threatened to use his power as president to get Constitutionally-conscious governors “out of the way.”
“Let me be blunt. My plan also takes on elected officials in states that are undermining you and these lifesaving actions,” Biden said.
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“Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs. Talk about bullying in schools,” he claimed.