Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., on Sunday slammed the “shaming” of those who haven’t yet gotten a COVID-19 vaccination, calling it a divisive strategy.
In an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Scalise, who has gotten the inoculation, said lamented the surge in cases in his own state.
“You've still got two thirds of our state unvaccinated,” he said. “What we need to do is be encouraging people to get vaccinated, not trying to shame people that are unvaccinated or people that got vaccinated.”
Scalise said he recognized the need for the shot when the fast-spreading delta variant became the prevalent strain.
“I had antibodies and so I ultimately made a decision once I saw the delta variant picking up that I thought it was important to get vaccinated,” he said. “And I have high confidence in this vaccination. It's safe and effective, and I think we ought to be encouraging more people to do it — but not shaming people who haven’t.”
“We ought to be confronting that, not trying to divide people based on who's vaccinated and who's unvaccinated,” he added.
Scalise also said he against federal mask mandates — and criticized Biden for still not having appointed a permanent Food and Drug Administration commissioner.
“I don't want mandates at the federal level. I've been very vocal about that,” he said. “I said those conversations need to be had at the state and local level.”
He added that “what we really need to be focused on is encouraging more people to get vaccinated. “
“One of the real areas of hesitancy that we're seeing that is a real problem is that people are saying that it's not FDA approved yet, in final approval,” he said.
“And yet we're 200 days into President Biden's administration. He still hasn't appointed the head of the FDA, and that's definitely a failure on President Biden's part.”
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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