'The Five': Biden administration is getting 'eaten alive by bureaucracy'
Americans are tired of increasingly stringent restrictions such as vaccine mandates for customers in New York, Philadelphia, beyond
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Biden and his White House are being "eaten alive" by the federal bureaucracy involved in combating the coronavirus pandemic because of the left's strict adherence to a "big government" philosophy, the panel on "The Five" discussed Wednesday.
Host Jesse Watters pointed to Biden's comments on Tuesday when he claimed "nobody anticipated" the more transmissible but potentially less lethal omicron variant spreading as fast as it did.
"That is not going to age well for Joe Biden," Watters said. "The president claims the new variant came out of nowhere even though the White House warned everybody about it weeks ago."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Watters also noted that Biden's own CDC director contradicted him on that front, saying recently that the Atlanta-based bureaucracy was indeed following it closely since its emergence in Botswana and South Africa.
"I think the Biden administration is getting eaten alive by the bureaucracy," commented host Katie Pavlich. "Because the left believes in big government bureaucracy, and they believe in putting everything in one basket."
"So over the past year, the Biden administration has been focused on vaccination, which is fine, but they have been not focusing enough on treatments and getting tests out the people, and now you’re seeing the results of that as the vaccinated and the unvaccinated continued to get this disease."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BYRON DONALDS RIPS FAR LEFT'S ATTACKS ON JOE MANCHIN
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the debt ceiling during an event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Pavlich and the panel pointed to images of New Yorkers standing for hours in the cold in line for rapid COVID tests, remarking that the federal government under Biden appears woefully underprepared for the surge in demand.
Pavlich also pointed out many Americans' growing frustration and anger toward ever-stricter roadblocks to normal community commerce, such as liberal cities and states enacting mandates in which restaurateurs are required under penalty of fine to check the vaccination papers of hopeful customers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Such executive mandates have come down from Mayors Bill de Blasio in New York and James Kenney in Philadelphia.
De Blasio's mandate goes into effect just days before the term-limited Democrat leaves office as the Times Square ball drops on New Year's Eve, while Kenney's mandate goes into effect January 3, 2022, according to the mayor's office website.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think a lot of people are over that, and there comes a point where you have to say no," Pavlich said. "You have to say no, I’m not going to show my papers to get into a restaurant. No, I’m not going to do x, y, and z. The election in Virginia was actually not just about the economy --for the governorship – [won by Glenn Youngkin]. He was about getting rid of a lot of these obsessive COVID regulations when the majority of the country has moved on."
"Anthony Fauci said that 'you all need to go out and get a test before Christmas,' which then flooded the testing sites with healthy people who don’t have symptoms," she added. "So people who have symptoms can no longer get a test. They created the crisis that we are in now, and they have no plans to get out of it other than mandating Americans do even more than they have already done so far."