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Cawthorn: Biden door-to-door vaccine strategy could be used to 'take' guns, Bibles

BY CELINE CASTRONUOVO - 07/09/21

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.) on Friday argued against President Biden’s proposed "door-to-door" pro-COVID-19 vaccine campaign, claiming the same methods could be used to “take” people's guns and Bibles.

Cawthorn made the assertion in a Friday interview with conservative news outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas.

“Now, they’re starting to talk about going door to door to be able to take vaccines to the people,” he said, referencing remarks Biden gave from the White House this week.

“Think about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing,” Cawthorn continued. “And then think about what those mechanisms could be used for. They could then go door to door and take your guns. They could go door to door and take your Bibles.”

Biden on Tuesday called on local communities to ramp up the pace of coronavirus vaccinations, explaining, “We need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood and oftentimes door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus.”

While White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified this week that they were encouraging volunteers at the local level, rather than federal employees, to go door to door promoting vaccines, Republican leaders in several states have pushed back on the suggestion.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) wrote in a letter to the state’s Board of Health and Environmental Control on Friday requesting that it “issue direction to agency leadership and to state and local healthcare organizations prohibiting the use of the Biden Administration’s 'targeted' 'door to door' tactics in the State’s ongoing vaccination efforts.”

The governor argued in the letter that “enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating, or pressuring” citizens to get vaccinated would undermine trust in the government.

Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, on Thursday condemned misinformation on the administration’s vaccine distribution effort, calling it a "disservice to the country and to the doctors, the faith leaders, community leaders and others who are working to get people vaccinated, save lives and help end this pandemic."

Freedom Caucus chair attacks Biden actions on vaccines
BY JUSTINE COLEMAN - 07/09/21 03:39 PM EDT 1,065

Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is attacking President Biden’s plans to conduct door-to-door outreach to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations, calling the effort “deeply disturbing.”

Biggs and 31 other GOP House members confronted the administration on what he called a serious privacy violation in a letter sent to the president on Friday.

“There is no scenario where the federal government should be actively entering communities and traveling door-to-door to pressure Americans to receive a vaccine,” the letter reads.


The lawmakers asked officials to respond by July 23 to questions on whether the outreach is constitutional and if the government has created a database or has access to other databases to track those who have or haven’t received the shots.

Biden officials have repeatedly said the federal government does not intend to track vaccination status or institute vaccine passports.

Criticism on the administration’s plans for door-to-door campaign supporting vaccinations has ramped up since Biden mentioned the effort earlier this week as a way to boost lagging vaccination rates, along with general community-level outreach.

In a separate statement, Biggs requested that the administration put more focus on dealing with the border crisis, inflation and “the crime wave” in cities “instead of meddling in private medical decisions.”

“The door-to-door spying on Americans is one more example of the burgeoning surveillance state by the national government,” he said.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, both Republicans, have also condemned the door-to-door vaccination push, with Parson saying he doesn’t want the government to “compel” vaccinations.

Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, told The Kansas City Star that the state has not conducted door-to-door vaccine promotion “but that’s not to say it hasn’t been utilized at the local level.”

“As with many issues through the pandemic, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work for every single community,” Cox said.

McMaster also joined in the disapproval, requesting Friday that health officials ban “targeted" door-to-door campaigns.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki countered McMaster’s remarks during a Friday press briefing, saying that the campaign has involved grassroots volunteers and clergy going door-to-door, not federal employees, since April.

“The failure to provide accurate public health information including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country including in South Carolina is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that,” Psaki said.

Coronavirus task force member Jeff Zients also accused critics of the door-to-door plan of “feeding misinformation and trying to mischaracterize this type of ‘trusted messenger work.”

Earlier this year, Missouri agreed to a $55 million grant from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to increase vaccination rates, which included funding for door-to-door outreach as well as teaming up with community leaders, according to The Star.