More vaccine mandates in place as Biden considers requirement for federal workers

Reporter: “Will you require all federal employees to get vaccinated?”

Joe Biden, U.S. President: “That that’s under consideration right now, but if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”

Reporter: “Are you concerned that the CDC guidelines put some confusion?”

Joe Biden, U.S. President: “We have a pandemic because the unvaccinated, there’s enormous confusion. And the more we learn, the more we learn about this virus, the delta variation, the more we have to be worried, concerned. And then only one thing we know for sure, if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world. So get vaccinated. If you haven’t you are not nearly as smart as I said you were.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, (D) California: “But as it relates to leading by example, 246,000 Californians are state employees. 246,000 Californians should be vaccinated and if they’re not vaccinated and cannot verify that they’ve been vaccinated, we are requiring that they get tested. California’s committed to vaccination, verification and/or testing on a weekly basis. We’re not stopping just with state employees, today we are also announcing partnerships that include those like Kaiser, private sector now stepping up, organizations representing physicians, dentists, dialysis clinics stepping up, private sector clinics are committing to the same. And we hope this example of public and private leadership as it relates to vaccine verification vaccine mandates, and/or mandated testing one to two times a week with also commensurate PPP, or PPE obligations as it relates to protective gear and N95 respirator masks as an example, will lead to others to replicate this example in the private sector. Our projections are sobering. Our projections are over the course of the next number of weeks will show a significant increase in hospitalizations if we continue down this path. But we are exhausted, respectfully, exhausted by the ideological prism that too many Americans are living under. We’re exhausted by the Ron Johnsons and Tucker Carlsons, we’re exhausted by the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, we’re exhausted by the right-wing echo chamber that has been perpetuating misinformation around the vaccine and its efficacy and safety. We’re exhausted by the politicalization of this pandemic and that includes mask wearing that has been equated to the Holocaust. It’s disgraceful, it’s unconstitutional, it’s unconscionable and it needs to be called out. The announcement here today is broad, it’s significant, believe we may be the first state at scale to not only require it for all state employees but to engage in public-private partnership with our healthcare facilities in the state.”