Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) published an op-ed in the New York Post on Sunday calling on President Joe Biden to sign the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 into law.
President Biden should be laser focused on ensuring the military can defend the USA from Russia, China and Iran.
Instead, he’s fixated on forcing the military to get vaccinated for COVID.
Read my op-ed in @nypost ⬇️ https://t.co/4QWUnShhez
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) December 12, 2022
Last week, the NDAA – which includes the termination of the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for military service members – passed the House by a vote of 350-80. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, and then to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature before becoming law.
However, on December 7th during a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the removal of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the NDAA a “mistake” when asked by a reporter whether or not President Biden will veto the bill once it arrives on his desk.
Senator Blackburn wrote in her op-ed that President Biden’s “fixation on a never-ending pandemic and woke military” is not helping as the U.S. military is “suffering a severe recruiting crisis” and as “America’s adversaries around the world are threatening the safety and security of our nation and its allies.”
“During times like these, Biden should be laser-focused on ensuring the US military remains the most lethal fighting force on the globe,” Blackburn wrote at the New York Post. “Instead, he continues to impose a vindictive and unnecessary vaccine mandate on our troops, forcing many of them to the sidelines. As commander in chief, one of the president’s most important duties is to protect those who volunteer to serve our nation, a duty he violated when he imposed the mandate.”
By requiring all U.S. service members to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Senator Blackburn believes that President Biden “not only failed our men and women in uniform – he undermined our national defense.”
Calling the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members a “uniquely dangerous power grab,” Blackburn called on President Biden to “immediately sign the NDAA into law when it arrives at his desk and work to make whole our troops who were the victims of his quest for power.”
“The Pentagon must also correct relevant military records to ensure those who were unfairly targeted do not have black marks on their record. Those who have volunteered to defend our freedom deserve the freedom to decide for themselves whether or not to get vaccinated. I stand with our troops, and that means standing against President Biden’s military vaccine mandate,” Blackburn concluded her op-ed.
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn and the National Guard” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn.
