I want to stress- MAY.

Montana soldiers serving in the US military may soon be exempt from the nonsensical COVID vaccine mandate.

The Biden Administration has been forcing the shot on soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard personnel and threatening to kick them out of the service if they don't comply.

US House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) basically said he has secured an agreement to do away with the mandate that is harming military recruitment and retention. He said this in a Fox News Radio soundbite over the weekend:

Rep. McCarthy: I had a meeting with the President. I laid out very clearly what the difference will be with the new Republican majority. And we're working through what is the NDAA, the National Defense bill. We will secure lifting that vaccine mandate on our military, because what we're finding is they're kicking out men and women that had been serving, people aren't- they're not meeting their  recruitment. I had a conversation with the Secretary of Defense even last night, but come next week, you'll see that we've been able to and that's the first victory of having a Republican majority.

 

Kevin McCarthy is certainly declaring victory on that front. We can  only hope that Montana service members will no longer face this absurd mandate.

As of Tuesday morning, Politico reports that the compromise NDAA bill (the National Defense Authorization Act) is still not available to reporters and the public. They added that Democrats are pushing back on the effort to end the COVID shot mandate on troops.

Last week, 21 Republican governors, including Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), signed a letter urging the DOD to drop the mandate. As governor, Gianforte oversees National Guard forces in the state who are also being punished by this mandate.

A spokeswoman for Montana Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) is also optimistic. Here's part of a note she sent to reporters on Monday.

word on the street is that an end to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Montana service members is finally on the horizon. While we know anything can happen in Congress, it’s a “not over till it’s over” sort of thing, but it’s looking possible that a provision pushed by Daines and a few of his Senate Republican colleagues could make it into the 2023 defense bill -- the “National Defense Authorization Act” or “NDAA.” The provision would protect service members from the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate.

 

In the last two years, Daines has also worked to reverse vaccine mandates for all Montanans, including healthcare workerswildland firefighterssmall businessestruckers, and Montana Head Start students and staff.

 

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