On Monday, Democrat President Joe Biden admitted that there is "no federal solution" to the COVID pandemic, sparking outrage from Republican leaders who demanded the Commander in Chief rescind all vaccine mandates immediately. The 79 year old, who famously promised to "shut down the virus" during his 2020 presidential campaign, was met with harsh criticism from GOP leaders, who called him a "hypocrite" and "incompetent."
"Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at a state level," President Joe Biden remarked, as reported by the New York Post. "And then it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that's where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help.'
The Republican National Committee (RNC) then took to Twitter to blast the Democratic leader, declaring, "Joe Biden claimed he would shut down the virus. Now a year later when he failed to do so, he says there is no federal solution to COVID. Joe Biden is a hypocrite."
Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who leads the National Governors Association, took a milder approach by advising President Biden not to downplay the role that the states play in combating COVID. The Arkansas governor remarked that when looking for federal solutions, the president must not hinder "state solutions" in fighting COVID.
Republican Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton decried President Biden's remarks, alleging that the Democratic leader was "trying to avoid blame for his incompetence" and immediately demanding him to "rescind his unconstitutional federal mandates." Sen. Cotton instead pointed to other pressing issues plaguing the U.S. today, such as the Mexico border security, the approval of safe COVID treatments and tests, and appointing "competent leaders" at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott meanwhile remarked that President Biden must "immediately end his unconstitutional federal mandates" and pointed to his state's solution to the COVID pandemic: "no mandates and personal responsibility."
Joining other GOP leaders in condemning President Biden was Republican Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who took to Twitter to share that "after a year," she "finally [agrees]" with the Democratic leader that "the federal government isn't the solution," Not the Bee reported.
"That's why from the start, [South Dakota] took a different approach by trusting our citizens to be responsible and make the right decisions for themselves [and] their families," Gov. Noem argued. She demanded, "Now rescind all the federal mandates."
In a USA Today op-ed, writer Louie Villalobos remarked that the Democratic president "finally decided to say the quiet part out loud" and argued that the states and governors actually have the power to fight the COVID pandemic because after all, Americans' experience with COVID is highly dependent on where they live and the mandates and lack thereof that involved.
The op-ed highlighted how different Americans "lived different versions" of the COVID pandemic depending on where they live and will continue to do so especially now that the president has figuratively thrown his hands in the air and given up on a federal solution.
