When pressed by Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, Admiral John Kirby failed to make his case for mandatory COVID vaccines for military personnel.
Kirby serves as the White House coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.
During a Tuesday “Fox & Friends” interview, Kirby and Kilmeade discussed the military missing its recruitment goals and plans to dismiss nearly 20,000 well-trained soldiers due to the Pentagon not honoring religious and health exemption requests by current military personnel.
During the interview, Kilmeade noted that military brass had barred over 60,000 soldiers from military service for refusing to take the vaccine and plans to dismiss 20,000 more in the coming weeks.
Citing Biden’s declaration that the “pandemic is over” and his recent commendation to unvaccinated Coast Guard personnel who provided heroic service during the recent Florida hurricane, Kilmeade pressed Kirby, saying:
“You, as an admiral, who knows what it takes and the sacrifice you make to join the military, to get kicked out like this, can you possibly talk some sense into this White House to reverse policy?”
Kirby parroted the Biden administration’s talking points: “Vaccinations are a valid military requirement. You want your troops to be ready and part of being ready is being healthy and not having the ability to infect your unit and make their unit readiness any worse than it is.”
Interestingly, the vaccinated and double-boosted admiral disclosed during the interview that he was suffering from COVID.
Kilmeade did not cite the growing number of studies that show the dangerous adverse side effects associated with the vaccine, but he did note that current vaccinations do not address the current variants and, therefore, should not be a requirement for service.
Obviously passionate about the issue, Kilmeade pressed:
“To invest in our people and train them and then dismiss them for an experimental vaccine is folly when you can’t recruit, every one of your branches can’t recruit their threshold and yet you’re kicking out good men and women. How do you explain that?”
Kirby repeated: “You have a requirement to be healthy to be able to serve,” Kirby said. “It’s a valid military requirement—”
“You really think so?” Kilmeade interrupted.
Kirby acknowledged that the vaccine does not prevent infection but argued that it lessens the severity of symptoms, an assertion disputed by several studies.
Kilmeade responded by saying the vaccine mandate is needlessly kicking out “the healthiest people in our country.”
He pressed: “So it’s worth kicking out the healthiest people in our country who are already sacrificing, it’s worth kicking them out?”
Kirby tried to placate Kilmeade by saying: “Brian, Brian, we would rather not lose anybody of course, to the vaccine; we’d rather not lose anybody from a retention perspective to have them leave the service earlier than they want or we wanted them to. But it’s a valid military requirement,” he repeated.
“No, it isn’t, it’s an experimental vaccine that just came off the shelf, you know it’s not valid and a risk on national security,” Kilmeade shot back.
“You are an admiral military officer; you can talk sense into this White House.”
Kirby tried to shift gears, arguing that vaccines are required to join the military to ensure their health and ability to serve. He did not mention that the vaccines he referenced are not experimental like the COVID vaccines or that they have a proven history of low adverse impact and no ties to religious objections.
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