Sen. Joni Ernst Dismisses Biden’s Vaccine Mandates as a ‘Diversion Away From 9/11’

In an interview on Fox News, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) dismissed President Joe Biden’s new vaccine mandates as an effort to divert attention away from the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

Ernst made the comments on America Reports, hosted by John Roberts and Sandra Smith. Roberts remarked that the business roundtable, representing a lot of larger companies, was “applauding vaccine mandates,” but there were differences of opinion.

The Biden administration was “now leading by coercion,” said Roberts, asking Ernst for her take.

“They are leading by coercion,” Ernst agreed, “and I would agree with the point that’s being made by so many of our colleagues that this is a diversion away from 9/11, and away from the 20th anniversary, and away from the debacle that was his Afghanistan withdrawal.”

The Americans left behind in Afghanistan “should be a very pressing issue for the president,” the senator continued, “and yet he doesn’t want to deal with that.”

Forcing these federal mandates was “one way to divert us,” said Ernst, because it gave business owners and employees something to focus on “rather than to try to honor those that have served our country in the global war on terror over the last 20 years and focusing on existing terrorism within the country of Afghanistan.”

Smith brought up how Biden had called Republican governors “cavalier” in their response to the pandemic, and played a video clip of Biden speaking.

“I am so disappointed that, particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids and so cavalier with the health of their communities,” said Biden in the video. “We are playing for real.”

Ernst slammed Biden for these comments, calling the governor of her state, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA), an “extraordinarily compassionate leader” who “cares very much about our children.”

Biden’s remarks, said Ernst, were “coming from a man who abandoned Americans in the country of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban.”

“I think our governors can take care of the situations in their own states,” she said. “They will make the call that is right for their states and certainly our family has every responsibility whether it’s on vaccinations or masks, they can make those decisions and decide what is right for them and right for their children.”

Despite Ernst’s claims that Biden is attempting to create a “diversion away from 9/11,” nearly a week ago, the White House announced that the president, accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden, would spend Saturday visiting all three sites of the terrorist attacks to commemorate the lives lost twenty years ago.

The Bidens will start their day in New York City at the memorial where the World Trade Center towers once stood, then travel to Shanksville, PA, where passengers on United Flight 93 forced the plane to crash land. They will finish the day at the Pentagon, where they will be joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Regarding Afghanistan, the White House issued a statement Friday afternoon reporting on additional American citizens and lawful permanent residents who had been successfully evacuated from the Taliban-controlled country, and members of the Biden administration continue to hold briefings and take questions from reporters on issues related to the current status of the Taliban takeover and the Americans and Afghan allies who still remain.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 are surging again as the more contagious Delta variant spreads, but this time, the patients in the ICUs are younger than in earlier surges. And they’re largely unvaccinated, making their illnesses — and in far too many cases, their deaths — preventable.

Over 656,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. Many states did not report data on new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the Labor Day holiday, but the statistics still show about 1,500 Americans are dying every day from the virus, a number not seen since March, when the vaccines became widely available.

Watch the video above, via Fox News.