WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden called some Republican governors “cavalier” on Friday for resisting his call for far-reaching new federal coronavirus vaccine requirements he hopes will curb the surging delta variant.
Biden visited a public school just a short drive from the White House to make the case for new rules he set out a day earlier that could impact 100 million Americans.
He also pushed back against Republicans, and some union officials, who say he is overreaching his authority. Biden said they were shirking their responsibility to young Americans.
“I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities,” Biden said during a visit to Brookland Middle School in northeast D.C. “This isn’t a game.”
The new federal vaccine requirements would affect private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors.