In her first interview after returning from maternity leave on Sunday’s Face the Nation, moderator Margaret Brennan spoke with former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member, Dr. Scott Gottlieb about President Biden’s constitutionally dubious vaccine mandate on private businesses and surprisingly teed him up to tear it down. And he didn’t mince words about how it actually harmed the effort to get Americans vaccinated and shouldn’t have happened.
Speaking about the reaction to the mandate, Brennan noted that “The Republican governor of Arkansas [Asa Hutchinson] is on TV today saying this is going to backfire. He’s trying to convince his constituents to take the vaccine, and because the federal government is telling them to, he says it’s going to be even harder.”
“Practically speaking, does this mandate make sense,” she finally asked her guest.
Gottlieb warned, “in terms of hardening positions and taking something that is subtly political and making it overtly political could outweigh any of the benefits that we hope to achieve.” He went on to argue that Biden’s actions would derail American’s promising trajectory on getting to a high vaccination rate (Click "expand"):
If you look at where we are right now, right now 75 percent of adults over the age of 18 have had at least one dose of a vaccine. Most will complete the series. That's a very high number of people vaccinated. Owing to the good work Biden administration.
We're not going to get above 90 percent. We don't even really reach 90 percent with childhood immunizations, which are mandated. So, we’re going to get somewhere between 80 and 90 percent. I would state we would have gotten to 80 percent just on our current trajectory in short order.
He also noted that there was going to be a lag between now and when the mandate could be enforced because the federal bureaucracy was naturally slow to move, plus the coming litigation. “And in the near term, a lot of businesses that might have mandated vaccines are now going to sit on their hands and say, ‘I'm going to wait for OSHA to tell me just how to do it and give me more political cover,’” Gottlieb said.
Brennan followed up by reminding viewers that many employers would need to make their staff submit to weekly testing if they didn’t vaccinate, and she was concerned that the capacity didn’t exist. Gottlieb felt the capacity was there but it was a “big burden on businesses to have to operationalize that and determine what they’re going to do with the results.”
From there, they discussed how many businesses were already mandating vaccines for their workers and they were adequately given cover by the mandate for federal workers. But Gottlieb contended that Biden didn’t have to “reach down to the level of small businesses with 100 or more employees and put a federal requirement on them.”
Gottlieb flushed out his stance by saying that the federal government had no business mandating private businesses get their people vaccinated:
I don't think the federal government should be dictating this. I also don’t think governors should be preventing small businesses from making these determinations on their own. We should leave these decisions to communities, local communities and businesses to make assessments of what their risk is, what their settings are, how much precautions they can put in, whether vaccine requirements are an absolutely necessary to protect people in those settings.
The conversation then turned to vaccines for grade school kids and boosters for older and vulnerable Americans.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CBS’s Face the Nation
September 12, 2021
10:36:16 a.m. EasternMARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we want to go now to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer. He’s a new book coming out too next week: Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic. Scott, it is great to see you again.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Good to see you.
BRENNAN: Look, states can mandate vaccines. The federal government has never done something like this before, outside of the U.S. military. The Republican governor of Arkansas is on TV today saying this is going to backfire. He’s trying to convince his constituents to take the vaccine, and because the federal government is telling them to, he says it’s going to be even harder. Practically speaking, does this mandate make sense?
GOTTLIEB: I think the downside of this mandate, in terms of hardening positions and taking something that is subtly political and making it overtly political could outweigh any of the benefits that we hope to achieve.
If you look at where we are right now, right now 75 percent of adults over the age of 18 have had at least one dose of a vaccine. Most will complete the series. That's a very high number of people vaccinated. Owing to the good work Biden administration.
We're not going to get above 90 percent. We don't even really reach 90 percent with childhood immunizations, which are mandated. So, we’re going to get somewhere between 80 and 90 percent. I would state we would have gotten to 80 percent just on our current trajectory in short order.
Perhaps with a mandate on small businesses, eventually you would get to something akin to 85 percent, but it is going to be slow because this is going to get litigated, it takes OSHA time to implement regulations. You’ll have to put in place guidance, give businesses a grace period, and figure out what the enforcement mechanism is going to be. And in the near term, a lot of businesses that might have mandated vaccines are now going to sit on their hands and say, “I'm going to wait for OSHA to tell me just how to do it and give me more political cover.” So, in the near term, you could discourage some vaccination.
BRENNAN: Right. OSHA, that’s going to come from the Labor Department, and they haven't filed that yet. That's what we're referring to.
GOTTLIEB: Right.
BRENNAN: The president, what he said was mandating a vaccine for businesses, and if employees at those businesses don't take it, the alternative is to get weekly testing. Do we have the testing capacity in the country to do that right now?
GOTTLIEB: We would have the testing capacity to do it, but it puts a big burden on businesses to have to operationalize that and determine what they’re going to do with the results. So, I think a lot of businesses are going to opt to try to force workers to get vaccinated, if in fact this ever goes into effect--
BRENNAN: Well, many were.
GOTTLIEB: But again, we're looking at a very long timeline here. Excuse me?
BRENNAN: Many already were, right?
GOTTLIEB: Many were, exactly. Many businesses are. And I think that the federal government's action to require federal employees to get vaccinated, which is probably well within their purview to do that in the function of federal readiness, that gives plenty of political coverage for more businesses, more private sector businesses to start to implement their own mandates.
So, I don't think we had to reach down to the level of small businesses with 100 or more employees and put a federal requirement on them. I don't think the federal government should be dictating this. I also don’t think governors should be preventing small businesses from making these determinations on their own. We should leave these decisions to communities, local communities and businesses to make assessments of what their risk is, what their settings are, how much precautions they can put in, whether vaccine requirements are an absolutely necessary to protect people in those settings.
(…)
