Ret. Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke: Military Vaccine Mandate Hurts Readiness

Former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, a Republican candidate running to represent Montana’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and a retired Navy SEAL, said the Biden administration’s imposition of a coronavirus vaccine mandate upon the military undermines America’s national security.

“It reduces our capacity as a nation to fight,” Zinke stated. “It’s a signal for those that could be a SEAL — or certainly have the potential — that do have a religious exemption or oppose an experimental vaccination.”

He added, “It’s a hit on our national security.”

Military mandates for coronavirus vaccines violate the Constitution, Zinke held.

He remarked, “It boils down to the Constitution. The irony of it is that everyone that serves has an oath to defend this Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and they have a right, on orders they feel that are unlawful, not to follow, not to follow them.”

“In this case, the SEALs, I don’t mean to speak for them, but I surmise that they are viewing this mandate as unlawful, and therefore they have an obligation not to follow an unlawful order,” he added.

He concluded, “It’s a slap in the face for any administration to actually go after these guys, and really for political purposes, because the science, especially on this new variant, is really not in place.”