Issues of the Day
Floor Speech
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Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
The passion with which you speak is the passion that the American people feel right now. One of the things that you said in the mandate that particularly I have seen for the men and women in uniform, for my chief warrant officer, who after 23 years is being forced out, for my Lutheran minister, who has 16 years and they will not accept his religious exemption--what I am seeing, though, that I think the American people need to understand is, it is not going to change the number of people who are vaccinated.
Firing somebody simply means they go from being an employed person to an unemployed person, a productive person to somebody less productive. We are literally making, as you and I speak, our military less productive at a time in which the Russians are at the Ukrainian border prepared to snuff out a democracy.
So your passion is the passion of the American people. You must continue for the next 14 days. We cannot fund this kind of a power play, particularly when, as you said so eloquently, it doesn't reduce the spread of the virus. It is dubious as to whether it actually reduces the impact when you get it. And lastly, if you don't get it, what they do is they choose to fire you, fire our first responders, fire our military people, and it is not going to change anything. Because if somebody believes it is either unhealthy for them, or for religious reasons doesn't want to, firing them isn't going to change it.
What it is going to change is it is demoralizing our military, it is demoralizing our police, and it is creating a situation in my own district in which our hospitals are saying that they cannot treat the patients. But the reason they can't treat them is people are sitting at home, and they are sitting at home, even if they are vaccinated, because it isn't working.
So keep it up. I just wanted to come to the floor and say nobody could be more proud of what you are doing and more in belief that these are dubious how they're working. The vaccine now has become more about a religion of power than anything else, and I want you to just know that you have the entire Republican Conference behind you.
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Mr. ISSA. Not only do I agree, but I just want to share something about this body.
You know, you and I get into elevators and sometimes our colleagues get out of the elevator, particularly if we are not wearing a mask. One of those people, one of my dear friends, Sara Jacobs had two shots, the booster, she always wears two masks and she is extremely careful. And she is at home with a positive on this virus.
So one of the things that we just have to ask ourselves is, Are we mandating to the United States military, where there is a 99 percent vaccination rate, are we throwing out 1 percent because it is going to make a difference? Or are we throwing out 1 percent based on some theory that an order is an order from the Commander in Chief, even if it no longer makes any medical sense whatsoever?
So keep it up. Fight for our men and women in uniform, and you will have us at your side. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
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