Politics
Ted Cruz hails new mask rules and says Biden and Harris ‘played politics with Covid’
SEN. Ted Cruz hailed new CDC guidelines that mean fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors in most settings – but blasted Joe Biden for playing “politics with Covid.”
“It’s about damn time,” the Texas Republican told Fox News of the new guidance on Thursday, shortly after the CDC unveiled the direction.
Cruz also accused Biden and Harris of ‘playing politics with COVID’[/caption]
“We should be following the science and not playing politics,” Cruz continued, “and from the beginning of Covid there’s been far too much politics connected to it.”
When it comes to masks, Cruz said he’s never “been extreme on either side”, but said once he was fully vaccinated he no longer felt the need to.
“I’ve gotta say, I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been playing politics with Covid-19. And they’ve been playing politics with keeping schools shut down – and the science is absolutely clear that kids should be in school in person today.”
Cruz also accused the President and Vice President of both “playing politics on masks.”
To him, Cruz said it never made any sense to continue wearing a mask when fully vaccinated, but “Biden and Harris kept saying wear a mask, wear a mask, wear a mask.”
Biden has been criticized over his mixed messaging regarding masks[/caption]
The Texan said he believes their insistence on mask-wearing “put people off getting the vaccine.”
“You should be encouraged to get the vaccine and one of the great virtues when you get the vaccine, you can take the mask off and return to regular life and that should encourage more people to get the vaccine,” he said, holding up his mask for the camera.
Earlier, Cruz had tweeted about the new CDC guidance writing: “Miraculous. Will Biden ignore?”
Cruz’s comments come in response to an announcement made by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Thursday afternoon.
As part of that announcement, the agency said fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors, save for a handful of circumstances.
The guidelines still call for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings such as on buses, trains, planes, in prisons, and in homeless shelters.
Masks will also still be required in healthcare settings or when gathered in large crowds outdoors.
However, it would ease restrictions for reopening workplaces and schools, meaning that two weeks after receiving a vaccine Americans can safely resume a life with limited restrictions.
The guidelines still call for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings such as on buses, trains, planes, in prisons, and in homeless shelters[/caption]
“The science is clear: if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” the CDC said.
Elsewhere during his interview with Fox on Thursday afternoon, Cruz piled in on President Biden, calling his first four months in office the “most radical of any administration in history.”
Cruz pointed to the “crisis” at the US-Mexico border, the fuel crisis brought on by the Colonial Pipeline hack, and the raging conflict between Israeli Forces and Hamas in the Middle East to substantiate his stance.
“Unfortunately Joe Biden has decided to hand over the agenda to the extreme left in this party … we are seeing $6 trillion in new taxes proposed, we are seeing the border, absolute chaos, the worst in 20 years and it’s getting worse and worse,” he said.
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“And we are seeing domestically a crisis. We are seeing economically a crisis and the inflation that is coming. And when you spend $6 trillion we don’t have any print the money you create inflation.”
He continued: “In just a few months Biden has managed to undermine our friends and allies to undermine Israel and send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian authority’s and Hamas and promise the ayatollah billions of dollars.
“What’s a reward for that? Hamas is raining rockets on Israel with money that comes, and we are seeing crisis after crisis after crisis because the Biden-Harris policies are radical and extreme that they don’t work.”