ANALYSIS/OPINION:

They told us to wear masks. They told us to follow the science. They told us it was all about public health and patriotism. Trust Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and the bureaucrats, they said. For the past 15 months, Americans did their part as our liberties were infringed upon, our businesses were shuttered, our children’s educations were stunted and our lives were put on hold.  

President Biden, the CDC, the teachers’ unions and the biased liberal media wouldn’t allow any loose talk about politics having anything to do with their decision making when it came to COVID-19 restrictions. “Who, us?” was their elitist position.     

But Americans started scratching their heads on April 23 when Joe Biden wore a mask on a Zoom call with international leaders from an empty room despite having received his second Pfizer shot on Jan. 11. Then on April 27, on the eve of his first address to Congress to mark his 100th day in office — and with a crisis raging at the border — Mr. Biden made the surprise announcement that Americans who are vaccinated no longer had to wear a mask outside.

This edict was handed down despite being told by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky only weeks earlier that she had a feeling of “impending doom” about the coronavirus. Was Mr. Biden’s about-face on masks driven by science or political timing?

Joe Biden’s allies in the mainstream media remain uninterested in digging into these questions.

Less than a week later, it was discovered that the American Federation of Teachers — an extremely influential Democratic special interest group — was lobbying the CDC on the topic of reopening our schools. The New York Post reported that “in at least two instances, language ‘suggestions’ offered by the union were adopted nearly verbatim into the final text of the CDC document.” The news that the CDC was taking cues from left-wing political operatives was shocking. So much for following the science.  

Then last week after days of negative headlines about the Colonial Pipeline hack and subsequent gas lines, fuel shortages, rising inflation, and war in the Middle East, the CDC miraculously announced that vaccinated Americans no longer need to wears masks outside or inside. Apparently, this is no longer “Neanderthal thinking” in the words of Joe Biden not so long ago.  

This momentous news was welcome relief for over 300 million Americans who have sacrificed so much for more than a year, but the timing again reeked of politics. To many, it appeared as if the CDC was behaving more like the DNC — the Democratic National Committee. Nothing changed in terms of the science on May 13 to make the decision obvious.

Many accused the Biden administration of continuing to essentially hold Americans hostage — that was until they needed a boost politically and to change bad headlines. It looks like Joe Biden has been lying to the American people all along — using the pandemic to pass the liberal wish list – complete with a multi-trillion dollar price tag. It’s a disgrace and it has to stop.  

As stories of the left’s politicization of COVID-19 continue to come to light, it makes former President Trump’s herculean push to develop a lifesaving vaccine in record time with Operation Warp Speed all the more amazing. The anti-Trump CDC and the entire bureaucratic morass couldn’t derail the former president from accomplishing this monumental feat for the American people. Everyone was against him — the mainstream media, the teachers’ unions, and the scientists — but Mr. Trump made it happen anyway.

Recall that days before the election, Dr. Fauci chose to politicize the COVID-19 pandemic by praising Mr. Biden’s actions and taking an underhanded shot at Mr. Trump in an interview with The Washington Post. This arrogant and inappropriate statement left voters with the false impression that Mr. Trump wasn’t taking the virus seriously the Saturday before the election. And let’s not forget that Pfizer held back the announcement that they had developed a vaccine until the Monday after the election.  

It’s clear that the Biden administration didn’t want to lift the mask mandate as quickly as they did because there’s still trillions of dollars in taxpayer dollars to spend in the name of a prolonged crisis. But now with America getting back to normal — in the midst of skyrocketing inflation, record national debt and a sluggish economy — it’s safe to say that Mr. Biden’s massive tax and spending plans are in danger and will face an uphill battle on Capitol Hill.  

But the new CDC rules on masks and vaccinations didn’t stop this incompetent White House from getting their new policy wrong — again. Mr. Biden opted to continue his campaign of fear with more dictatorial mandates when he tweeted: “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. The choice is yours.” Instead of taking a day to celebrate our reasserted liberty, Mr. Biden threatened Americans who aren’t vaccinated yet. Mr. Biden’s message of do as I say or never get your freedom back was un-American and un-presidential.  

When even the liberal Washington Post chooses to publish an op-ed entitled, “The CDC’s mask guidance is a mess. Biden needs to clean it up,” your inexplicable mixed messaging on masks just might be an epic disaster. Joe Biden ran on the premise that a vote for him and his team was a vote to put the so-called adults back in charge. Well, with the ongoing mask fiasco, economic uncertainty, and violence in the Middle East, Mr. Biden is making the American people miss President Trump. 

This latest episode further demonstrates that political calculation is a prominent part of Joe Biden’s decision-making process. Knowing this, what’s so difficult about saying, once you’re vaccinated, you’re safe? It’s about time Mr. Biden gives it to the American people straight — and that’s no malarkey.  

David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United and he served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.

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