President Joe Biden has been accused by conservatives throughout his presidency of flip-flopping on federal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, citing it when needed to explain a wobbly economy or justify canceling student loans, then, when convenient, saying it's over thanks to his administration.
So, there is some irony in the fact that Biden will now sign legislation ending the national emergency over COVID-19, with Democrats accusing him of a flip-flop.
MARYLAND'S OUTDATED SCHOOL PLAN WON'T FIX ITS SCHOOLS POST-COVID
"I can handle any policy position that they take,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) told CNN. “But none of that excuses the lack of clarity, or putting us in a position where we vote, and then there’s a change of heart. That’s very unhelpful.”
The House voted along party lines in February to end the national emergency then-President Donald Trump declared on March 13, 2020, with the Biden administration coming out strongly against the bill. Then, before it came up for a vote in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told Democrats the White House would not veto it, opening the floodgates for a bipartisan vote.
More than a dozen Democrats joined in on a 68-23 vote knowing they had Biden's backing. But the move infuriated many of the 197 House members who voted against it.
“If someone said, ‘This is my strongly held opinion. I hope you all are aligned with my strongly held opinion,’ and then a month later, says: ‘Never mind, not my strongly held opinion’ … it’s not great,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA).
Republicans know the feeling.
The GOP has repeatedly accused Biden of following the political winds on COVID-19. The most famous example was likely when Biden said "the pandemic is over" twice in an interview last September, but afterward continued pushing his $400 billion student debt transfer, which rested legally on the pandemic, and extending the national emergency.
Other issues include the administration arguing for the end of the Title 42 border expulsion policy last May, citing improved health outcomes, even as it fought against ending other measures. Biden has taken credit for creating 12 million jobs after taking over a pandemic-beaten economy while also saying high inflation is due to COVID-19-related supply chain issues.
Even with the emergency ending, Biden is keeping some pandemic policies in place. Most federal office employees, for example, continue working from home.
But the end of the national emergency, which will be followed on May 11 by the end of the public health emergency, still represents a sea change. Biden will lose many of his expanded powers, the government will no longer pay for various precautionary measures, and people on Medicaid will again have their incomes checked to see if they remain eligible. As many as 15 million could lose coverage.
After it ends, the pandemic will remain a major part of Biden's presidency. The issue helped him get elected, as Biden won voters whose top issue was COVID-19 by 66 points, and it remained one of his best-polling issues after taking office.
"I do think now is the right time to end the public health emergency, as long as it doesn't mean that we stop doing things to fight COVID, full stop," University of California, Irvine, public health professor Andrew Noymer said. "The vast majority of the public has moved on from major countermeasures, such as masking at the grocery store; maintaining the emergency longer risks it becoming irrelevant."
As Biden's term wore on, his handling of COVID-19 became more controversial as political battles over mandatory masking and school closures emerged. Opposition to those measures fueled the rise of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), now one of Biden's chief rivals in the 2024 election.
The biggest controversy now may be the administration's effort, or lack thereof, toward discovering the pandemic's origins. It took a vote from both chambers of Congress to get the president to declassify information on how the pandemic started.
"The Biden administration has dragged its feet on, and even obstructed, investigation of the origin of the pandemic," said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University.
The national emergency non-veto was Biden's second black eye with House Democrats in just two months. He'd performed a similar about-face over a D.C. crime bill that would have lessened penalties for a variety of crimes, alienating 173 House Democrats in the process.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has fiercely defended her boss, saying the president never explicitly declared he would veto the bills.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon argued that, while he should be more careful when it comes to statements about vetoes, the pandemic will remain a net positive issue for Biden, both now and when the emergency expires after nearly 40 months.
“He should be proud of the way he handled it,” Bannon said. “He should basically say that, ‘I took drastic action, and I’m glad I did, because it saved thousands of American lives.”