Did Biden call unvaccinated the enemy?

1. Biden’s words: blunt, blame-focused, and repeated

Across multiple high-profile statements, President Biden framed the crisis as one driven largely by unvaccinated people, saying “the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated” and calling Covid “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” while also telling Americans that “the unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices.” ^{[1] [3] [2]} These remarks were part of a policy push in 2021 that included vaccine mandates and other measures intended to increase uptake. ^[3]

2. What he did not say: the exact word “enemy” is absent in available records

The claim that Biden “called unvaccinated the enemy” implies a direct quote using the word “enemy”; the provided contemporaneous reporting and transcripts do not document him using that exact term in his public addresses or official White House statements cited here. Sources record strong rhetoric — “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” accusations that refusal is “costing all of us,” and that misinformation is “killing” people — but not the single-word label “enemy.” ^{[1] [4] [2]}

3. How critics and allies interpreted the rhetoric

Conservative commentators and some Republican officials treated Biden’s tough framing as dehumanizing and politically weaponizable, with tweets and opinion pieces arguing the comments implied an out-group destined to die or be punished; one example cited reactions that the rhetoric looked like an “outgroup” condemnation. ^{[5] [5]} Meanwhile mainstream outlets documented the administration’s rationale: that strong language reflected frustration with rising hospitalizations and the link between low vaccination rates and worse outcomes. ^{[3] [4]}

4. Context matters: policy, public health framing, and targeted blame

Biden’s forceful language accompanied concrete policy actions — mandates for federal employees, military vaccination requirements, and OSHA-related employer rules — and was framed by officials as a public‑health communication strategy aimed at reducing hospital strain and deaths rather than as a moral denunciation of individuals. ^{[4] [3]} Administration spokespeople and advisers emphasized that the language targeted behaviors and misinformation networks, not inherent worth of people. ^[2]

5. Misinformation and the political echo chamber

Right- and left-leaning media filtered and amplified different elements of the president’s statements: some outlets highlighted the public-health urgency and policy context, while others emphasized provocative lines and framed them as evidence of elites disparaging dissenters — a dynamic that helped spawn the simpler, more inflammatory claim that Biden had labeled the unvaccinated “the enemy,” despite the absence of that exact phrasing in the reviewed texts. ^{[2] [5]}

6. Conclusion and limits of the record

Based on the sourced speeches and coverage reviewed, President Biden used adversarial, blame-oriented rhetoric toward unvaccinated people and explicitly blamed misinformation for fueling dangerous choices, but there is no documented instance in these sources of him literally saying “the unvaccinated are the enemy”; the assertion appears to be an interpretive leap by critics and some media actors rather than a verbatim quote in the cited public record. If further primary transcripts or additional statements exist beyond the sources provided, they were not available for this analysis. ^{[2] [1] [3]}