(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Congressional Republicans want to end the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Armed Forces personnel, but the Biden administration defended it as a measure to improve military preparedness and the “well-being” of soldiers.
“Making sure our troops are ready to defend this country and prepared to do so, that remains the president’s priority and the vaccine requirement for COVID does just that,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, according to the Washington Examiner.
House and Senate leaders are negotiating the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive omnibus bill that Congress passes each year to fund the military and the secret police. In the bill, Republicans hope to include a provision that would end the military’s COVID-19 mandate, but they would need a few Democrats to pass it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has no interest in scrapping the mandate because the “COVID vaccines have saved lives.”
“The military has had requirements about other vaccines for decades, and there hasn’t been a problem,” he said. “So it’s befuddling, but we’re still working on it.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who hopes to assume the Speaker’s role in January, said he wants to kill the COVID-19 injection mandate now, but he can wait until after Republicans take control of the House. Republicans would still need a few Democrat votes in the Senate to end the mandate.
The White House also claimed the mandate has nothing to do with collapsing Armed Forces recruitment numbers.
“Generally speaking, the vaccine mandate appears to have very minimal impact on recruiting,” said Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh, who blamed disinformation around the vaccine rather than the injection’s toxic ingredients and deadly side effects.
There was another reason and rationale behind the administration’s entrenched vax position for the military, according to Front Page Magazine’s Daniel Greenfield.
“Current military readiness rates remain terrible, but the Biden administration doesn’t care about military readiness,” he wrote. “All it cares about is remaking the military through a series of political tests.”
