Biden says his mask mandate is common sense. Republicans say 'kiss my ass.'

Democrat ignorance and control tendencies.

When Joe Biden issued an executive order this week requiring 
mask-wearing on federal properties, it was framed as the least 
controversial provision he would issue early in his presidency.

“It’s not a political statement,” he said, “it’s a patriotic 
act.”

But shortly after the newly elected president uttered that plea, 
some Republicans made clear that even this ask wouldn’t go over 
well with them.

“The Biden administration is already headed in the wrong 
direction,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said on Friday. 
“Continued federal overreach won’t end the Covid-19 pandemic or 
put food on the table.”

And within days, it became clearer that opponents wouldn’t just 
complain about the mask mandate, but actively fight it, too.

“Definitely expect lawsuits from our state, private lawsuits,” 
said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based GOP strategist and 
former campaign manager to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The pushback against Biden’s mask mandate is the earliest, most 
visceral sign to date that consensus will be nearly impossible 
to form in a still very-much-divided D.C. And it raises 
questions about how far the new administration is willing to go 
to crush what remains of a lethal pandemic, with expectation of 
100,000 more deaths in the next month and widespread vaccination 
still months away.

Under the executive order, Biden is directing departments and 
agencies under his jurisdiction “to immediately take action to 
require people in federal buildings or on federal lands, on-duty 
or on-site federal employees, and on-site federal contractors to 
wear a mask and maintain physical distance,” according to the 
White House.

But the order also requires masks on various modes of public 
transportation, including trains, airplanes and intercity buses. 
And it’s that provision, attorneys who have challenged mask 
mandates in the past say, that could be the most vulnerable to a 
legal challenge.

While Republicans are warning about the potential for overreach, 
it does not appear that the White House will take a direct role 
in penalizing those who flout the mask mandate. A White House 
official said that agencies will be tasked with enforcing the 
order as they see fit. National parks also must abide by the 
mask order, but the White House says it is allowing for 
officials overseeing the parks to create their own guidelines 
for indoor and outdoor spaces on their properties.

At least one attorney who has headed a court case opposing mask 
mandates, said the language in Biden’s order appeared tightly 
written, perhaps in anticipation of legal challenges.

“In the summary I reviewed, I see evidence of careful thought 
and planning to anticipate challenges,” said Seldon Childers, a 
Florida attorney who has a pending case challenging mask 
mandates. ”I think they will probably prevail on having 
authority regulations.”

Scientists and epidemiologists say mask wearing is a critical 
means to slow the spread of Covid. And it wasn’t a surprise that 
Biden made the mandate one of his first acts in office. 
Throughout the campaign, he had pledged to take the action on 
the first day of his presidency.

But the pushback has, nevertheless, been visceral. A month ago, 
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was chiding Biden’s mask mandate idea on 
Twitter. “On day one,” he said, “I will tell you to kiss my ass.”

And, after the formal introduction of the mandate, Republicans 
went after BIden, calling him a hypocrite for not wearing a mask 
at the Lincoln Memorial hours after he had signed the mandate.

“Typical Democrat - rules for thee, not for me,” former Trump 
campaign official Marc Lotter tweeted.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to George W. Bush, tweeted 
a New York Post story entitled “President Biden ditches mask at 
Lincoln Memorial hours after mandate.”

In a press briefing on Thursday, a Fox News reporter pressed 
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on whether Biden was 
practicing what he preached.

“We take a number of Covid precautions, as you know here, in 
terms of testing, social distancing, mask wearing ourselves, as 
we do every single day,” Psaki said.

Pushing against scientific consensus, Florida state Rep. Anthony 
Sabatini, who has filed more than a dozen local lawsuits to 
battle mask mandates in counties across the state, challenged 
the notion that masks actually reduce the spread of the virus. 
He pointed to California, where compliance is high even as cases 
of Covid-19 have soared. He also insisted that there was no 
practical point to it, since, he argued, most federal properties 
are already requiring masks and cast Biden’s move as political.

“I think he's the guy that it's all about optics it's not really 
about results,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get his message 
across that he cares. He cares more about looking like he’s 
doing something.”

Biden advisers don’t necessarily dispute the idea that the point 
of the order is not the mandate itself but the optics and 
message it sends. They say Biden felt it was important for 
Americans to hear a clear message on the benefits of mask-
wearing — with one White House official saying there was “no 
unifying standard” under Donald Trump. But the edict is also 
part of what they described as an all-hands-on-deck effort to 
contain the spread of the virus at a time that Biden has 
repeatedly warned would be a “dark winter.” And the more 
compliance with mask wearing, Biden advisers say, the more the 
country has an opportunity to drive down the spread of the virus.

Mark Scott and Tina Nguyen contributed to this report.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/22/biden-mask-mandate-
461533