'We are not going to comply': Daily Wire files legal challenge to Biden's vaccine mandate

On Thursday, the Daily Wire filed a lawsuit against the federal government to stop President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate on large private businesses.

The conservative media outlet partnered with the Dhillon Law Group, Inc., and the Alliance Defending Freedom to sue the Biden administration in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Daily Wire reports.

Biden's vaccine mandate applies to companies with more than 100 employees, which are now required by a temporary emergency standard issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to have their workers get vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing for the virus. Businesses that do not comply could face nearly $14,000 in fines per violation. Companies must come into compliance with OSHA's mandate by Jan. 4.

The president said Thursday that the vaccine mandate will impact 100 million Americans.

In response, several Republican states filed lawsuits challenging OSHA's mandate, along with businesses in at least three states, including the Daily Wire.

"We are not going to comply with this mandate and we've already filed a federal lawsuit with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop this mandate," Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro said on "Fox and Friends" Friday.

"It is unconstitutional, it is illegal, it violates the original enabling act for OSHA. It is completely anti-scientific as well," he added.

Shapiro characterized the mandate as "a crackdown on liberty by the Biden administration."

He also pointed out the "irony" of the government issuing an "emergency temporary measure" that won't go into effect for 60 days, conveniently after the holiday season ends.

"This has nothing to do with actually mitigating COVID and everything to do with top-down control by the Biden administration," Shapiro said.

According to a press release, the Daily Wire will argue in court that OSHA issued the vaccine mandate illegally:

As the motion for stay filed with the 6th Circuit will argue, the federal government has no power under the Constitution to force half the U.S. private sector workforce — 80 million workers or more — to be vaccinated against their will or endure repeated medical testing as a condition of simply earning a living. Nor is OSHA empowered to compel employers to enforce this government diktat or face punishing fines. Yet the OSHA mandate would do just that. Even if it had such power, Congress did not delegate it to OSHA, which is overtly trying to ram this unconstitutional, extra-statutory, and unprecedented mandate into immediate effect through emergency rulemaking to avoid public comment in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Forced to invade employees' medical choices or histories and their religious beliefs in connection with a condition of employment, The Daily Wire risks being trapped between its obligations under the mandate and the prohibitions against discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the burdens of laws regulating the possession of private information. The mandate is unconstitutional because the Constitution does not grant Congress — much less OSHA — the general police powers needed to mandate vaccination and virus testing as a condition of private employment, or to deputize employers to enforce that mandate on its behalf.