Recorded in the Oval Office last week

"Say, now that we've destroyed the economy and bankrupted tens of thousands of small businesses, what can we do to make things even worse?"

"How about if we order every company with more than ten employees to order those workers to take the jab or be fired?"

"Wow, that's a great idea!  Of course to keep the workers from blaming our Administration we should have the actual ORDER come from OSHA or the Labor Department or the CDC or the FDA.  Due to the terrible 'public health EMERGENCY,' eh?"

"Hahahahahaha!  You're absolutely right!  The rubes would never think to blame our party for some low-level bureaucrat writing some RULE all on his or her own, right?"

"Wait, if we do this, could it have some unpredictable negative effect that would cost us votes?  Like, I've heard lots of nurses are refusing to take the jab.  If we go with that 'jab or be fired' rule, what if thousands of nurses quit instead of taking the jab?  Wouldn't that leave hospitals way short of nurses?  Could the Rethuglicans blame that on US?"

"Oooh, good point!  So we just have to make it so punitive for nurses and other critical employees to quite that they'll submit instead.  So let's see if we can get one of our judges to RULE that anyone who quits won't qualify for unemployment benefits?"

"Great idea.  But isn't that already the law?"

"Oh yeah, guess you're right.  Well at least we can  get one of 'our' judges to rule that employees who are FIRED for not taking the jab won't get unemployment benefits.  That will make 'em think twice about refusing our orders."

"Great idea, sir.  And may I suggest that we can increase the...um...'incentives' to take the jab even more by issuing a rule that people won't be allowed to shop unless they show proof of vaccination?  People love to shop--especially for things like groceries.  So this new RULE would make 'em eager to take the jab."

"Great idea.  Make it so!  And if a few hospitals are a few employees short of being fully staffed, we can blame 'right-wing extremists' and 'misinformation' for the shortage."

"Great idea, sir.  Of course we don't want voters to see US as the source of that claim, cuz a few might recognize that it's self-serving.  So we should get our friends in the Media working on those stories right now, so they're in print and leading the evening news broadcasts the moment a story about a shortage of essential health-care workers leaks out!"

"Great idea.  It's so helpful to be able to blame every problem on 'misinformation,' knowing our allies who own and run Social Media will delete anyone who tries to post the truth!  It's such a hoot that the rubes have never figured that one out.  Make it so!"

"Another great benefit of forcing employers to fire any employee who refuses to take the jab is that it'll cut the number of cops and conservative members of the military.  So if crime goes up, or military units are short-handed, we can blame that on right-wingers too!  We can say that the selfish refuseniks only took that position because they read anti-vaccine scare stories on the internet!"

"Great idea!  And 'refuseniks' is a great word!  Have our media friends start using it in vax stories.  But we really need to do something to stop our enemies from posting anti-vax stories on the interne