17 Sep 2021 Biden Mandates Harm the Integrity of the Presidency

Wondering where a president finds “the power to dictate” policies affecting private employers such as the currently pending vaccine mandates, Steve Gruber asked Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper to explain the fate of equal justice under the law in the Biden era.

Horace told Gruber, host of the “America’s Voice Live” program on the Real America’s Voice network, that the Biden Administration “is really trying something very, very unique.” Rather than respecting the Constitution and the liberties it sets aside for the American people, the White House “is publicly announcing that it doesn’t have the power to do things, claiming that it won’t do things.” But then it does all the things.

“I am speaking about the eviction policy that the Supreme Court ruled on,” Horace said, “and that the president of the United States said he understood that he didn’t have the authority to go forward and then promptly turned around and issued a ruling.”

Horace noted this was just the start of a myriad of COVID-related regulations with questionable constitutionality:

Similarly, with the mandates, there is no stated power in the United States Constitution for the Congress of the United States to require people to wear a mask. The only power, therefore, that the president should be able to exercise, are the powers that Congress – duly-authorized under the Constitution – has given him or directed him as part of some lawful responsibility to carry out. There has been no such action.

Without such authority, Horace warned that Biden is hurting the institution of the presidency:

I think the president would be on much stronger grounds if he at least went through the process of having our Congress of the United States actually look at, consider and rule on it.

When that isn’t happening, the president’s power is at its lowest. And it creates some serious concerns for the American people in recognizing that we live in a constitutional republic and not a place where one executive says and does whatever he wants.

Gruber wanted to know how far the White House might go in intentionally exceeding the limits of its power – if only to begin a policy it hopes it will take hold despite being unconstitutional (such as employers retaining a vaccine mandate after a court overturns it). Horace replied that a lot of the Biden Administration’s hubris springs from a lack of media scrutiny. And he gave Gruber credit for maintaining some of the media’s integrity:

This is one of the reasons why a network like this one is so important. If we had a working media, they would absolutely ask questions.

When Donald Trump was president, every week we had to get a reaffirmation that that administration was not going to interfere with the scientific decisions of such important matters that were going to affect our health care…

It is obvious that there are manipulations. There are attempts to influence and use the political process to affect our country’s… medical policies. Why haven’t the media called out this administration?

And it’s not like anyone needs to do a lot of digging to find the deceit. Horace remarked that the evidence is just a few clicks away:

All you have to do is Google, and look on YouTube and other places where they have videos, where you could see the president promising that he’s not going to do these things.

It’s really, really dismaying. And yet, what I would say to you and your audience is – when this is challenged in federal court, it is going to be very, very difficult for this administration to prevail, having adopted a Tuesday-the-answer-is-no-but-Thursday-the-answer-is-yes [approach]. That doesn’t fly with the courts.

Asking a “broader question” about the skills of the Biden Administration – pointing out the poor performances by high-ranking officials such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in articulating and defending administration policies – Gruber asked Horace if there was anyone in the Biden Administration he would consider “a very competent person.”

Horace commented that the performance of those in the Biden Administration is not – in fact – doing them any good:

I can’t [recommend someone], but it’s not important what I can’t see. It’s much more important what the American people say. And they are saying, in survey after survey, that this administration is a disappointment, this administration is not carrying out its responsibilities capably.

And I will tell you, for the first time since 1992, we are seeing surveys that show the American people say if they had to have a vote on the presidential election again they would now no longer select Mr. Biden.

“Very striking,” Horace concluded.