Mike Pence: Biden vaccine mandate ‘unlike anything I ever heard from an American president’
Former Vice President Mike Pence reacts to President Biden’s vaccine mandates.
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday reacted to President Biden’s speech on vaccine mandates, arguing that it was "unlike anything" he has heard from a previous president.
"I have to tell you the president’s speech yesterday was unlike anything I had ever heard from an American president," Pence told "Fox & Friends."
"I mean, to have the president of the United States say that he has been patient but his patience is wearing thin. That’s not how the American people expect to be spoken to by our elected leaders," Pence said.
Pence said the president should continue to lead by example and encourage people to take the vaccine, as he and his wife Karen did on national television in December.
PENCE URGES YOUNG CONSERVATIVES 'TO GO GET' COVID VACCINE SHOT
On Thursday, Biden announced a series of vaccine requirements from the White House that could apply to as many as 100 million Americans as part of an aggressive push to stem the surge of COVID-19. The requirement impacts federal employees as well as large employers, among other sectors.
Pence, who was very much the public face of the Trump administration's efforts to help drug makers quickly produce an effective coronavirus vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, lead the White House's Coronavirus Task Force.
Some top Republicans – such as Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell – have joined Pence in strongly urging Americans to take the shots, but others in the Republican Party remain skeptics of the vaccine and have been highly critical of the Biden administration’s efforts to persuade those opposed to getting vaccinated to take the shots.
The president and his administration have repeatedly emphasized in recent months that getting the vaccine is the quickest and most effective way of stemming the pandemic.
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Pence argued Biden’s decision to impose vaccine mandates does not respect the leadership at the state level. The former Indiana governor said that respecting states' rights was "central to the coronavirus task force" he helmed in the Trump administration.
"We got governors across the country what they needed when they needed it, and we respected them to make the decisions best for their state. And now to have a president not just scolding the American people but scolding governors around the country, it just is not the American way. And I expect the response they are going to get across the country will prove that."
Fox News' Louis Casiano and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.