President Joe Biden, touting his near half-century of work in Washington, pitched himself as the calm, steady hand on the control of the federal government that was blatantly absent in the Trump years.
But on COVID-19 policy, with less than a week under his belt actually doing the job of president, Biden has been chaotic.
After months of haranguing President Donald Trump for being clueless about how to tackle the coronavirus, and apparently convincing 81 million other Americans of that, Biden admitted he, too, could not handle the virus.
“There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months,” Biden said on Friday.
Biden’s team then whispered to friendly reporters that they had to begin at “square one” and “build everything from scratch” because the Trump administration failed to leave a plan on how to distribute the COVID vaccines.
That lie was debunked by none other than Trump’s nemesis Dr. Anthony Fauci. “We certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution,” Fauci said.
In fact, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that 24.5 million Americans have received vaccines so far and that last week, health officials administered 1.27 million shots per day on average – already exceeding Biden’s initial target of 1 million shots a day over his first 100 days in office.
Biden, because of COVID, then imposed new travel restrictions on parts of Europe, Brazil, and South Africa.
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden’s press secretary what “word” we should use to describe a travel ban on South Africa, a nation that is nearly 80 percent black when Biden called Trump xenophobic for mandating a similar restriction on China last year.
The spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, openly lied by saying that was not a “fair” take on what Biden had said, and then deflected by arguing that Biden had referred to Trump’s ban on entry for people from majority-Muslim countries that have been designated as sponsors of terrorism.
But the mask mandate that Biden implemented has been something to behold.
First, thanks to Doocy, we learned that on the same day Biden imposed the mask mandate for people visiting or working on federal property, Biden and his family visited the Lincoln Memorial without wearing masks. He also failed to don one while signing more executive orders a couple of days later in Oval Office.
When Doocy asked Psaki about that Lincoln Memorial incident, she replied, “I think we have bigger issues to worry about at this moment in time.”
Regarding masks, Biden has maintained that it is a “patriotic duty” to mask up. He repeated that on Tuesday, recalling when one congressman told Biden what he could do with his mask mandate.
Back on Dec. 9, when Biden announced that he would impose a mandate on “day one,” Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy tweeted, “On day one I will tell you to kiss my ass. #StandUpForAmerica.”
On Tuesday, Biden said wearing a mask could save 50,000 lives in months ahead, and that it was patriotic to do so.
In addition, Biden noted, “One congressman pointed out — he used very colorful terms to say — ‘wearing a mask I’d tell him to kiss my ear, I’m not gonna wear a mask.'”
“Well, guess what, not very American.”
Roy, in response, told RealClearNews, “It’s not my most Christian statement but it’s very American.”