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“I say to these governors: please help. But if you’re not going to help, at least walk away,” Biden said during remarks on the pandemic on Tuesday. “People are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.”
Over the past week, Biden has demonstrated a new willingness to cross lines he was previously reluctant to cross, frustrated with the behavior of some Republicans and exasperated by Americans refusing to be vaccinated.
Earlier in his presidency, as he worked to build a nation-wide vaccination effort and distribute coronavirus relief funds, Biden struggled to keep politics out of his efforts, believing that outright criticism from individual governors or Americans hesitant about vaccines would backfire.
When a reporter asked Biden specifically about the Republican governors of Florida and Texas, the president went further, alleging that some of their decisions – like banning schools from requiring masks or banning vaccination warrants – didn’t were unfounded.
“I think the results of their decisions are not good for their constituents,” he said. “And it is clear to me and to most medical experts that decisions made, like not to allow mask warrants in school and the like, are bad health policy.”
Still, Biden ignored the question of whether he would personally phone Governor Ron DeSantis to express his concerns – “To say happy birthday?” he laughed – and said instead that the governor of Florida knew where Biden was standing.
The White House has defended Biden’s decision not to personally call governors like DeSantis, pointing to regular conference calls led by Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator, Jeff Zients. Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the White House remains in contact with officials in Florida to discuss federal Covid efforts, despite the state governor’s actions.
“We are working closely with Florida public health officials and the governor’s team to see if we can send a team there to help meet their needs. So it’s underway,” a- she declared. “That’s not to say we aren’t going to call when we think there is more action that can be taken.”
Until recently, however, officials have said they are keen to avoid the “rhetorical battles” with Republican governors that have fueled pandemic culture wars and would likely favor a confrontation with the incumbent Democratic president.
“Getting into a heated public debate about this is exactly what sometimes plays into the hands of the people who make these decisions,” a senior administration official told CNN in March. “The president’s general worldview is not to take the bait, not to escalate the rhetoric, not to try to create a war.”
That mindset changed this week as another senior official told CNN this week that some GOP governors “put their political interests ahead of public health.” Psaki then made a similar point during his daily briefing on Tuesday, later echoed by the president himself.
“If you try to restrict people and impose warrants and ruin their jobs and livelihoods, if you try to lock people up, I stand in your way. I stand up for the people of Florida,” he said. DeSantis said.
Biden’s vocal frustration with DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott underscores the difficulty he faces in containing another wave of the virus. Most of the decisions that will have the most effect in stopping the spread – like imposing masks and vaccines or ordering new lockdowns – will be made at the state level, limiting the president’s power to alter the trajectory of the virus.
While Biden last week announced a new requirement for federal workers to be vaccinated or otherwise subject to strict mitigation measures, he cannot impose the vaccine on all Americans. It also cannot enforce mask warrants nationally; the advice offered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week was just a set of recommendations that states and localities can choose to follow.
But officials have become more direct in their assessment of other governors, who have rejected the federal guidelines and instead seem guided by their opposition to the public health measures recommended by the CDC.
Speaking in Miami on Tuesday, DeSantis sought to play down the current situation in Florida, where coronavirus hospitalizations are up 13% from Florida’s previous peak on July 23, 2020, according to the Florida Hospital Association.
“I think it’s important to stress that because obviously the media is doing hysteria,” DeSantis said. “You try to be afraid of the merchants, you try to do this stuff. And when they talk about hospitalization, our hospitals are open for business.”
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