Rep. George Santos sponsors anti-vaccine mandate bill named for Nicki Minaj
NEW YORK -- Rep. George Santos says he's trying to "bring more engagement into public policy" with a bill named after rapper Nicki Minaj.
CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer asked Santos about legislation he's sponsored in this week's episode of "The Point."
"So what's the MINAJ bill? The MINAJ Act?" she asked.
"So the MINAJ Act is a medical freedom bill. It was a creative way-- here's how politics works. Politics is boring," Santos said.
"Who's Minaj? Is it--?" Kramer asked.
"Nicki Minaj," Santos said.
"That's who I thought," Kramer said.
"Yeah," Santos said.
The Medical Information Nuanced Accountability Judgement (MINAJ) Act of 2023 aims "to prohibit the Federal Government from imposing any mandate requiring an individual to receive a vaccine that has not been authorized for marketing for at least 10 years, and for other purposes."
"So why are you naming a bill after [Nicki Minaj]?" Kramer asked.
"Well, she was very pro-choice on the vaccine situation and didn't like the mandates of the COVID-19 vaccine," Santos said, "and the reason I named the bill with some nuance there was simply to make sure that we can get pop culture meets politics and we can harness the energy of a younger generation which necessarily doesn't enjoy politics or layman people who don't pay attention to politics and say, oh, politics doesn't matter, but then you put some pop culture reference in there and you're opening the doors to politics to a whole new window of people."
Santos added, "I'm trying to bring more engagement into public policy. Isn't that a good thing, though? You make it entertaining, Marcia, so people can bear to watch C-SPAN because it is boring ... I cannot bear to watch C-SPAN, I'll answer that question."