Tipsheet

Biden Thanks Heroic Coast Guard Rescuer He's About to Fire for Being Unvaccinated

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  October 03, 2022 7:00 AM

President Biden personally called a Coast Guard rescue swimmer - who will soon lose his job for being unvaccinated - to thank him for his heroic work during Hurricane Ian.

“I told him how proud of him I was and thanked him for all the work he and his Coasties are doing to save lives,” Biden said about his call to Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch.

Loesch, who saved a wheelchair bound woman and her husband after they had become trapped in their bedroom, is set to be kicked out of the Coast Guard in the next month or two after his request for a religious accommodation was denied. 

In an interview with Breitbart, he was confident no one he rescued would have cared about his vaccine status. 

“If I had asked any of the people I saved yesterday if they wanted to come with me even though I am unvaccinated, every single one of them would have said ‘yes,'” he said.

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Loesch did not bring up the issue during his call with Biden as he did not feel it would be appropriate. 

“It just sucks that he thanked me yet the vaccine mandate is what’s kicking me out,” he said. “I just love my job and I’m really good at it. It sucks. I feel like this is the job that I was born to do.”

Responding to the story, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) blasted the Biden administration's vaccine mandates. 

"This will cripple our ability to effectively respond to the next natural disaster if the Biden Administration doesn’t reverse course. We need more service members like Zach Loesch who put their life on the line to save others - not less," Waltz, a former Green Beret, told the Daily Mail. "And with the military’s current recruiting crisis, these skills will be extremely difficult to replace."