Outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio might not have the legal right to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on all private-sector employers, and besides, it is "really unfair" to Mayor-elect Eric Adams to have them drop in the days before the current mayor leaves office, former Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., told Newsmax.
"I strongly support vaccinations," King told Monday's "John Bachman Now." "I wish everyone would get them. Having said that, I'm against the mandate, certainly this type on the private sector."
With President Joe Biden being stopped at the national level from imposing private sector vaccine mandates, a more localized mandate might also not be allowed, according to King, who added he does not know of any legislation in the state of New York that would allow the requirement to be imposed.
Further, Adams will "have enough troubles" taking over in New York City, King continued, noting the community is "at a crossroads with crime, with losing business as people are afraid to come to the city while it is still recovering from the pandemic."
New York City declared Monday all private-sector employers must implement the vaccine mandates, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant is now in at least one-third of all states in the country.
Under the mandate, all 184,000 businesses in the city's limits must make employees show proof of vaccination by Dec. 27. Further, by Dec. 14, all children ages 5-11 must have had at least one dose of the vaccination to be allowed to enter restaurants or to participate in extracurricular school activities, de Blasio said.
King said the outgoing mayor could be setting the mandates because he plans to run for governor.
"This may be a way to control the headlines as we're going into the new year, the start of the campaign," said King, pointing out de Blasio has also just opened up two supervised injection centers where addicts can use drugs.
"He had eight years to do this, and he waited until the final month?" King said. "No, I would say that de Blasio is probably trying to do what he wanted to do all along and that he feels this will give him publicity in the left-wing during the Democratic gubernatorial primary."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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