Ron DeSantis Sues Joe Biden for Trying to Keep Americans Alive

As the last 18 months have made clear, there are two types of elected officials in the U.S.: those who want Americans to live and those who…well, we’re not going to say they actively want Americans to die, but if that’s what happens, they’re seemingly not too broken up about it. In the former category, you have individuals like Joe Biden, who are actually trying to stop the pandemic and keep people healthy; in the latter, you have people like Ron DeSantis, who basically come up with a new idea each week to expose their constituents to COVID-19 and potentially kill them.

To date, DeSantis has banned schools from instituting mask mandates; docked pay from school board members requiring face coverings; told parents to feel free to send their kids to school after exposure to COVID-19; fined a county for requiring employees to get vaccinated; held a press conference with a man who claimed COVID vaccines change your RNA; appointed a state surgeon general whose work has revolved around spreading dangerous vaccine misinformation; and offered unvaccinated police officers $5,000 to relocate to Florida. So, really, it should come as little surprise that on Thursday, he sued the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate for federal workers, as such a policy might actually have a positive impact on the fight against the virus.

Per NPR:

The state of Florida on Thursday sued President Joe Biden’s administration over its coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal contractors, opening yet another battleground between Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the White House. The lawsuit, announced by DeSantis at a news conference, alleges the president doesn’t have the authority to issue the rule and that it violates procurement law. DeSantis has vowed legal action over federal vaccination requirements and fought masking and vaccine rules implemented by local governments in Florida. He recently announced he would call state lawmakers to the Capitol next month to pass legislation to combat vaccine mandates enacted by private businesses.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa and names Biden, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson as well as White House contracting officials as defendants. In addition to a vaccine mandate for federal contractors, which is set to go into effect in December, Biden has also announced that private employers with 100 or more workers will have to require them to be vaccinated or tested weekly. The roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated. Additional details on the policies are expected to be released soon. Biden has argued that the sweeping mandates will help end a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 740,000 Americans.