Xavier Becerra, who recently served as President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced Wednesday that he is running for governor of California, hoping to succeed termed-out Gavin Newsom.
Becerra ran HHS during the era of vaccine mandates, when the administration forced Americans out of jobs for refusing to comply.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, he said he had no regrets about forcing people to take vaccines:
In a wide-ranging interview last week, Mr. Becerra said Mr. Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandates, for federal employees, health care workers and large employers, were “absolutely” warranted. “Should we require people to wear seatbelts?” he asked.
He was otherwise invisible at HHS, as more died of coronavirus under Biden than Trump.
His tenure did have one lingering effect: Becerra lost track of tens of thousands of migrant children who were allowed into the U.S. under Biden’s loose border policies. (HHS is responsible for the Office of Refugee Resettlement.)
Prior to that assignment, Becerra had been the Attorney General of California, a post for which he had to revive his defunct law license after he returned to the state from the House of Representatives. His main focus was suing the Trump administration even as crime spiked throughout the state.
According to Politico, Becerra says that he will stay in the race even if former Vice President Kamala Harris decides to run, which she has hinted she may do.
The field of candidates to replace Newsom is crowded on both sides of the aisle. Under the “jungle” primary system, the top two vote-winners in next year’s June primary will advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
