'If you disobey, we will prevent your children from being educated': Tucker Carlson slams colleges for forcing students to get COVID vaccine before returning to campus
Tucker Carlson has condemned American colleges and universities for requiring students to get vaccinated against COVID-19, arguing that such mandates 'forbid kids from getting an education'.
The Fox News host - who has been clear that he is personally pro-vaccine - ripped into the mandates that have already been adopted by more than 100 schools on his show on Monday night.
He asserted that schools forcing students to provide proof of vaccination is part of a larger campaign by Democrats to take bodily autonomy away from citizens.
'Just because there is no official federal requirement to take the coronavirus vaccine does not mean that you and your family won't be required to take it, with the full backing of the Biden administration, private industry and nonprofits may be forcing you to,' Carlson said.
'Colleges across the country have announced that they will require vaccine passports in the fall. Students who can't show proof of COVID vaccination will not be allowed on campus,' he added, citing Yale, Georgetown, Princeton, Duke, Columbia, and the University of California system as examples.
Tucker Carlson condemned American colleges and universities for requiring students to get vaccinated against COVID-19 on his Fox News show on Monday night
'You can see where this is going, and at high speed. Soon, virtually all college students in America will be required to take the COVID vaccine. In effect, it is a national mandate,' Carlson continued.
'Why are schools doing this and is it a good idea? From a medical standpoint, it's hard to understand the reasoning behind this.
'As a group, young people are not at risk of dying from COVID. Maybe more significant, huge numbers of college students have already been infected with the coronavirus. We know that. And therefore, they have natural immunity to it.
'So, why do these kids need the vaccine? No one has explained that.'
Carlson went on to argue that the university vaccine mandates were driven by Democrats - including President Joe Biden.
'They found our pressure point,' he said. 'If you disobey us, they've announced — and Barack Obama has affirmed them and so has Joe Biden — if you disobey, we will prevent your children from being educated.
'That will work, by the way. Because short of arrest and imprisonment, keeping children out of school is the most coercive measurement the authorities could take.'
Kent State University student Marz Anderson gets his Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination from Kent State nurse Beth Krul in Ohio on April 8, 2021
Carlson clarified that he wasn't saying students shouldn't get vaccinated, but rather than they shouldn't be forced to.
'It's not a question of the vaccine,' Carlson said at one point. 'You may want the vaccine for yourself and your children, you may not. It's a question of being forced to take it.
'If we allow ourselves to be forced to take it, what next? And anything is the answer to that question.
'If the authorities are permitted to control a health care decision this intimate, if they can force you and your children to take a vaccine you don't want and are afraid of, then what can't they do? Nothing.
'They will have total power over your body and your mind forever. What's the limit to their power? There isn't one.'
Carlson pointed to a public service announcement former President Barack Obama posted on TikTok encouraging young people to get the vaccine as an example of Democratic overreach.
'Some creepy old guy telling your children, your little kids, to take medicine whose effects we do not fully understand. It's totally normal,' he said.
A CNN tally published over the weekend showed more than 100 colleges and universities around the US have announced that they will require students to provide proof of vaccination before returning to campus in the fall (file photo)
A CNN tally published over the weekend showed more than 100 colleges and universities around the US have announced that they will require students to provide proof of vaccination before returning to campus in the fall.
That list has exploded in the span of a few weeks since a handful of schools announced the policy.
The mandates vary from school to school, with some saying they will make exemptions for medical, religious or personal reasons.
Most of the schools are private but some - including the University of California system - are public.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 36 percent of US adults under the age of 35 are not planning to get vaccinated.
As of Monday more than 147.5 million adults have received at least one dose of a vaccine nationwide and 105.5 are fully vaccinated.
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