HHS Secretary Becerra Says Comments About "Government's Business" and Vaccination Status Were Taken Out of Context

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sparked controversy on Thursday after an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar. Keilar asked, “I wonder if you can answer that criticism: ‘It’s none of the government’s business knowing who has or hasn’t been vaccinated.’ What do you say?” Becerra responded, “It is absolutely the government’s business, it is taxpayers’ business, if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting covid and helping reopen the economy.” Becerra later tweeted that his comments were “taken wildly out of context” and that the “government has no database tracking who is vaccinated.”

Coverage was more prominent in right-rated outlets, with Fox News featuring the story at the top of its homepage. Coverage in several outlets across the spectrum took Becerra’s comments to mean that it was the government’s business to know who had been vaccinated. Coverage in some left-rated outlets highlighted Becerra’s claim that his remarks were taken out of context.