Republicans pounced on Vice President Kamala Harris Monday after she visited a school in Washington, D.C. mask-less while students were still wearing their pandemic-era face coverings.
‘Kamala Harris: Rules for thee but not for me,’ GOP Texas Senator Ted Cruz posted on Twitter of her visit to Neville Thomas Elementary School.
Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona, repeated the sentiment with his own tweet of a picture of Harris maskless surrounded by kids with masks.
He also sent a statement to DailyMail.com, saying: ‘It’s abhorrent to see the Vice President of the United State flaunting around a stage with children fully masked next to her.’
‘If the Biden-Harris regime had the ability to keep all Americans—including children—in masks forever, they would. Keeping masks on Americans and their children is not following the science,’ Biggs added.
Republican National Committee rapid response director Tommy Pigostt tweeted: ‘In the Democrats’ anti-science dystopia, the only person who doesn’t need to wear a mask is Kamala Harris.’
As the vice president emerged to deliver her remarks on the administration’s strides toward improving education and school infrastructure, there were students seated on stage behind her – all masked.
Images of Harris visiting classrooms of kids between 2nd and 4th grade also show that while she was not wearing a mask, the young students she was meeting with were.
All the other adults escorting Harris on her trip, including Thomas Elementary school principal Jaimee Trahan, were not wearing face coverings and some pictures showed select students were not masked-up either.
The controversy comes, however, as even Democratic states started lifting their masking rules in schools earlier this year, claiming it was time things went back to normal for kids and their education.
The District of Columbia’s public school system in mid-March ended requirements for students and staff to wear masks indoors and instead implemented an optional masking policy.
The new guidance, although granting more leniency on masking, could result in an increase of quarantining and virtual learning for students who are unvaccinated.
Students who do not have the vaccine are now required to quarantine for at least five days if they come in close contact with someone in a classroom who tests positive for COVID. This applies to students even if they were more than three feet away and were wearing a mask at the time of exposure.
Harris trip on Monday came as she continues to face staffing issues amid a slew of scandals involving her public remarks and appearances including gaffes, award wordings and inappropriate laughter.
The vice president’s deputy chief of staff Michael Fuchs is set to leave the administration in May, which makes the 11th staffer to leave Harris’ office in the matter of months.
Fuchs has advised Harris on domestic and international issues, helped manage staff and accompanied her on foreign trips. He also previously worked as a foreign policy advisor for President Bill Clinton and in the State Department under President Barack Obama.
While Fuchs will stay in his current role until early May to ‘ensure a smooth transition,’ according to a memo sent around to staff, he has not yet announced where he is heading next.
At the same time, Harris is hiring a new head speech writer after her last one, Kate Childs Graham, departed in February.
This is an excerpt from Daily Mail.
