The war of words between Tate Reeves and Joe Biden continues to escalate

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - The months-long tit for tat between Governor Tate Reeves and President Joe Biden shows no sign of slowing down.

After a week of Reeves charging Biden of “tyrannical-type” actions in the wake of the president’s recent vaccine mandates, along with threats of legal action because of them, Biden is now swinging back.

In a public address on Thursday, Biden said that his administration is facing pushback from Republican governors in response to the mandates, which, once enacted, would affect close to 80 million Americans.

After first calling out Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, charging them both of undermining his measures, Biden then set his sites on Reeves.

“Some of the same governors attacking me are in states with the strictest vaccine mandates for children attending school in the entire country,” Biden said. “For example in Mississippi, children are required to be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis B, polio, tetanus and more.”

Indeed, Mississippi sits at number one in the country in regards to childhood-vaccination rates with nearly 100 percent.

Biden used this stat as a point of attack on the Mississippi governor, stating that when he issued his vaccine requirement, Reeves declared it a “tyrannical-type move.”

The president labelled this accusation from Reeves as “the worst type of politics.” This because “it’s putting the lives of citizens of their states, especially children, at risk.”

As of September, seven children in Mississippi have died due to COVID-related causes.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 5.3 million American children have tested positive for the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.

All but seven states have reported a child COVID-19 death. Nationwide, less than 0.3% of child cases result in death.

Of the more than 460,000 Mississippians who have contracted COVID-19, over 9,000 have died. The latest surge in cases, due to the Delta variant, caused several state hospitals to set up field hospitals in order to care for the sudden influx of patients.

Biden would continue in his speak, saying his latest policies are what “the science tells us we need to do.”

This latest war of words between the president and the governor is just the latest in a string of jabs between the two politicians which has continued for months.

In March, Biden called it “Neanderthal thinking” for Reeves to remove all mask mandates in the state. Reeves would shoot back that “Mississippians don’t need handlers.”

Later that same month, Reeves would tell Biden “no thank you” after the urging U.S. governors to reinstate their state’s mask mandates.

The latest saga in their war of words began after Biden announced his intention to mandate rules that all businesses with more than 100 employees must require their workers to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly.

Along with saying that it was a “tyrannical-type move,” Reeves would also accuse Biden of issuing it solely to turn attention away from his administration’s bungling of the Afghanistan withdrawal which saw the death of 13 American service members.

On Thursday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and 22 other Republican AGs asked the Biden administration to abandon the vaccine mandates. If they do not, Fitch threatened to “seek every available legal option to hold you accountable and uphold the rule of law.”

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