Tenn. mayor, aka pro wrestler Kane, vows he ‘will not comply’ with Biden’s COVID-19 mandate

 A Knoxville, Tenn.-area mayor, better known as WWE wrestler Kane, has joined the list of GOP elected officials in red states who have vowed to reject President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination edict for businesses with 100-or-more employees.

Mayor Glenn Jacobs metaphorically put the “tombstone piledriver” on Biden’s plan in a two-page letter he sent to the POTUS that succinctly began with “Knox County will not comply with your mandate.”

“As the chief executive of an organization that employs 2,700 individuals, your action adds financial, legal, and regulatory burdens that will ultimately impact Knox County taxpayers. In addition, it potentially hinders our ability to attract quality employees since many folks in our community will not work somewhere that unjustly imposes vaccine mandates,” the libertarian-leaning Jacobs explained to Biden in his letter.

“As a fellow elected official who has sworn an oath the uphold the U.S. Constitution just as you have, I am alarmed by the alacrity with which you issued this order, contradicting both Article I, Section 1 — which vests legislative power in the Congress — and the Tenth Amendment — which recognizes the sovereignty of the states or the people over matters the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government,” Jacobs continued.

“In Knox County, we know what we stand for. We stand for freedom. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the Constitution. And you can rest assured that we will stand against your blatant and egregious executive overreach,” the ex-grappler, who was elected as the county mayor in August 2018, concluded.

Jacobs’ letter also noted how Biden’s chief of staff has admitted that the planned OSHA rule is the “ultimate work-around” in terms of imposing a vaccine mandate without congressional legislation.

“Instead of humbly contemplating the implications of trampling constitutional process, your top aide is gloating like the cat who ate the canary. Mr. President, if we, as elected officials, ignore, disregard, and contravene the laws which bind us, how can we expect our fellow citizens to respect and follow the laws which bind all of us as a society.”

“Finally, as an American, I am appalled by your statement: ‘This is not about freedom or personal choice.” On the contrary, in America, it is always about freedom.”

In the missive, Jacobs also recalled how he attended the funeral of one of the 13 heroes who tragically died in the Kabul suicide bombing last month. In context of infringements on individual liberty, he wondered whether defending freedom has become “simply a hollow platitude” as a way “to rationalize the loss of our best and brightest.”

In an interview with Dana Loesch, Jacobs claimed that the Biden team “opened a huge can of worms” by announcing this rule as a way to deflect from the Afghanistan disaster. He told Loesch that “we’re not following the science; we’re following the politics, and we have been since the early days of the pandemic, and, of course, that’s terrible.”

The mayor claimed that the vaccine mandate is more about a power grab by agenda-driven Democrats rather than a public health-related measure. As others have observed, liberals have abandoned their traditional body views outlook in the pandemic.

The mandate could result in the shuttering of more businesses, who are already having difficulties finding employees, he insisted. It could also impact national security if active duty soldiers or even National Guard members opt to resign/retire rather than accept the COVID-19 jab, he noted.

As part of the discussion, Loesch noted that public health authorities seem to have disregarded the possibility natural immunity among those workers who have survived COVID. “But apparently in every other virus it applies except for this one.”

Watch the clip embedded below and draw your own conclusions:

During the conversation, Jacobs described vaccines as “very beneficial,” although there are some risks associated with them. “People as individuals should be able to make that cost-risk, benefit-risk analysis themselves” without government coercion.

He also warned about the likelihood of liability lawsuits against private businesses, and state and local governments, in the context of an adverse reaction to the shot. “The trial lawyers…the personal injury lawyers…are going to figure out a way that they can sue someone, and frankly they should.”

As far as the Biden administration reportedly restricting, or considering restricting monoclonal antibody treatments, Jacobs described that as “playing politics with people’s lives.”

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs concluded the discussion with Loesch by reaffirming what he asserted in his letter that “In America, it is always about freedom, and it is always about personal choice.”

As Kane, Jacobs is a three-time WWE World Champion and a 12-time tag team champion and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year.