White House Covid Czar Says Biden Will ‘Look for Every Lever he Can’ To Push Vaccine Mandates

White House COVID-19 Response Team chief Jeff Zients said that while President Joe Biden has no “authority” to insititute a national mask mandate, the president will ” look for every lever he can pull” to push vaccine mandates.

At Friday’s White House Cvovid briefing, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher asked the team for an update on whether the Justice Department has weighed in on the government’s authority to institute a national vaccine mandate, and whether the team thinks every American should be covered by a mandate.

Tommy Christopher:  My question is sort of a one and a half part question, really. The first half question being, I’m assuming that you still haven’t received any guidance from the Justice Department on whether or not the federal government has the authority to institute a national mandate. But you can correct me if I’m wrong about that.

And so my question is for each one of you. Just to be clear, if you had your druthers, would you prefer that every American be covered in some way by some sort of a vaccine mandate, be it local, state, employer, et cetera?

Jeff Zients:  So we have no plans or authority for a, I think what you call, a national mask mandate.

The president has taken significant action on vaccination requirements across the federal government, across the military, across health providers that are at the Department of Health and Human Services and at the VA, and then also use the power of the government as payer through CMS, which is Medicare and Medicaid, to require vaccinations for nursing home workers.

In that the data is clear that when nursing home workers have a lower level of vaccination, that residents get infected and suffer the consequences of Covid at a higher rate.

And the president will continue to look for every lever he can pull on vaccination requirements. And we’re all very heartened by the fact that private sector, public sector schools are following suit with with vaccination requirements.

Watch above via The White House.