As they get ready to insert wording repealing the contentious COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all military members, congressional Democrats are poised to award Republicans a significant triumph and President Joe Biden a defeat.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), according to The Daily Mail, will contain an order to abolish the requirement. Still, it won’t permit people who have already been discharged for refusing the shot to return to active duty.
However, they might be entitled to compensation for any effects they endured.
The bill will be made public on Wednesday and put to the vote later this week.
Republicans have resisted the mandate from the beginning.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has stated that he intends to maintain the military’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement to safeguard the troops’ health.
Austin told reporters accompanying him on Saturday, “We lost a million individuals to this virus.” “In America, a million people lost their lives. DOD cost us hundreds of lives. Thus, this law has preserved people in good health.”
Austin said, “I’m the guy, ” giving the order for the military to demand the shot. “I favor keeping up the military vaccination program.”
Austin ordered last year that all soldiers receive the vaccination or risk being fired from the military; thousands of active duty personnel have since been let go for refusing the vaccinations.
At a meeting in the White House with Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, claimed to have secured bipartisan support to lift the mandate.
