Council Member Vickie Paladino (Council Member Vickie Paladino via Twitter)
Jan. 12, 2022 By Allie Griffin
Queens Council Member Vickie Paladino, who came under fire Tuesday for comparing the city’s vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, has apologized for her remarks.
Paladino made the comparison during an interview with NY1 when explaining that she wouldn’t disclose whether she had been vaccinated against COVID-19. Her statement came about a week after she had been barred from the City Council chambers for refusing to share her COVID-19 vaccination status.
“I don’t need to show you my papers,” the 67-year-old Republican lawmaker said in the interview. “This is not Nazi Germany.”
Paladino apologized to “anyone who was genuinely offended” on Twitter the day after her interview was published.
“I don’t need to show you my papers. This is not Nazi Germany.” @VickieforNYC won’t say if she’s vaccinated, even if it means no access to @NYCCouncil chambers. More soon on @NY1 @InsideCityHall https://t.co/lYGFktBms5 pic.twitter.com/VwjIBfXYBX
— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) January 11, 2022
“During an hours-long interview with a reporter in which I spoke passionately about many issues, I made an ill-considered and inappropriate comparison between our government’s vaccine mandates and Nazi Germany,” she said in a statement Tuesday. “Though I immediately regretted what I said, and even asked the reporter to strike it from the record, I take complete ownership of that mistake.”
She said she would be meeting with local Jewish leaders to discuss the matter in the coming days.
“While my intent was to illustrate that requiring residents to show medical papers to earn a living or do everyday activities is an authoritarian practice that does not align with this country’s principles, it is never okay to compare anything to the evil of Nazi Germany,” Paladino said.
Days earlier, the council member tweeted that she was forced to cast her vote for council speaker remotely after she was barred from the chamber floor during the new council’s first meeting.
“Unfortunately, I was barred from the chamber floor due to my refusal to submit vax status to the city,” Paladino tweeted on Jan. 5. “Our government is now interfering with a duly elected representative’s right to access the mechanisms of office.”
She said that several progressive council members expressed concern about her being inside the building because they didn’t know if she was vaccinated.
Paladino said she was told she’d be removed from the chamber floor if she attempted to enter and therefore cast her vote from the minority leader’s office instead of making a scene.
She warned, however, that her courtesy that day would not last.
“Going forward, if anyone has a problem with me in the chamber, they will have to remove me,” Paladino said.
She said she will fight the vaccine mandates both in the city council and throughout the city.
Council members and all city workers are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to maintain their employment. Council members and employees cannot work at City Hall or council offices without proof of vaccination except in cases of approved medical or religious exemptions.
Paladino won the District 19 seat representing Whitestone, College Point, Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston and parts of North Flushing in November and succeeded Democratic Council Member Paul Vallone.
She narrowly defeated Democrat Tony Avella, who represented the same district in the council from 2002 to 2009.
Paladino’s refusal to reveal her vaccination status is not the first time she has flouted COVID-19 rules. In December 2020, a video of Paladino leading a maskless conga line at an indoor Republican club holiday party went viral.
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34 Comments
Ignore the vaccine mandate at your own peril. Get vaccinated and boosted! It’s FREE. Hospitalization is not.
From The Washington Post 1/21:
“Unvaccinated adults age 65 or older who contracted the coronavirus were 49 times more likely to require hospitalization than seniors who had received booster vaccine doses, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Unimmunized adults in that age group were also 17 times more likely to be admitted to a hospital than those who had received either two shots of an mRNA vaccine or one Johnson & Johnson dose. Meanwhile, unvaccinated people between 50 and 64 years old were 44 times more likely to need hospitalization compared with their boosted counterparts.“
She should have compared it to Vichy France, would have caused less fuss. Millennials have no clue what that is.
If you’re so wise, how come you can’t come up with your own post name?
Why would she apologize, it 100% true.
Sounds like Adams wants more green card holders to stay and move to new york city. Its a wise business move. Also he may be preparing to run for Gov of NY one day and wants NYC to vote him in .
I’ll be damned…$6000 attorney fees and 9 years to make my wife a citizen from the Philippines and now a non citizen can vote free of charge?
Too bad it wasn’t allowed back then. She would have had a voice in her community.
Obviously it’s not free… the cost is to vote Communist… oops, I mean Democrat.
Calling Eric Adams a qualified Mayor is like calling NYC “SAFE”
Can someone please explain a world where you need COVID ID for Burgers…but anyone can vote? Please help it make sense.
It’s called Clown World
Taxation without representation.
At movie theater in Astoria asked twice
Twice for proof of vaccine and an ID card
This is waaay out of hand
Give them free rent, free food, free medical, why not the right to vote.
I’m still trying to understand how the people who voted for the people above thought that was a wise decision.
That’s a slap on the face to our diverse community, especially the growing Latino community ? right here in Queens. Vote these racists leaders out of office. Open more truly affordable housing in their districts. Take a back our city. We will no longer remain silent.
Take your vitamin D
Mask up
Wear gloves
Don’t breathe
When I rode Amtrak I used to talk to motorman dale
C’mon dude. Get a better line. Get another name.
Dumb comparison. However two doctors i went to required vaccination proof just to see the doctor. Both were in Astoria and i am vaccinated so it was not a problem. Now my daughter is telling me that certain places are beginning to require kn95 masks in order to enter. She cant find these masks locally and online i found them for 75 dollars for a pack of 50. The white house should of sent us a box of kn95s and not self tests. Few are getting tested now that the holidays are over. I kind of understand peoples frustration
The entitlement and persecution complex of these people is pathetic and laughable. And the sheer ignorant arrogance to compare being asked (for the common good and just like everyone else) to provide proof of vaccine to living under Nazi Germany and other brutal authoritarian regimes would be almost breath-taking were it not so typical of the deluded and false sense of victimhood and grievance that drives right wing America.
Sometimes things ARE like N@#! Occupied Germany! Making people do things to their bodies in order to keep their jobs?
Comply or else…
Yeah , doing things like carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. There is a big difference being denied table service Vs being carted away to jail and being made to disappear.
Cuomo, DiBlasio, and his communist buddies were the ones who were placing restrictions on Jewish religious gatherings during 2020 “lock-downs”, just to remind you all.
Yes, this is real-time global take-down of human rights.
Always be suspicious of troll politicians who run for office on an anti-government platform. This woman makes the likes of John J. Ciaffone and Robert Holden look like Newton and Leibniz! Congratulations to the residents of her district for voting in a local Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now please do the right thing and unseat her in 2023.
PS- for those D26 residents who think the name Vickie Paladino sounds familiar, she was an anti-bike lane wingnut who was ADORED on Twitter by supporters of local deplorables Queens Streets for All. It gives you an idea of the element of our community who thankfully do not form a voting majority. Peas in a pod, even before the pandemic!
…but that’s how Nazi Germany started! She’s right and doesn’t need to apologize.
Weak. She should’ve stood up to the bullies.
Keep voting democrat and we will keep having to deal with the left facism.
She should not apologize! I’m Jewish, my kids are Jewish and we are getting sick of being asked for our “papers” to go into a restaurant. Who made restaurant workers the “Covid police’? Time to end this farce.
Is it that hard to show a card? I’m sick of correcting the Fox misinformed zealot. Fauci is far from stupid however the Dotard who suggested shooting bleach into human bodies has shown himself to be “stupid” but you obviously refuse to see the truth. Fauci is being targeted because that’s what Fox propaganda does, it targets to protect their party and agenda. The weak minded and gullible (people like you) jump on the band wagon and wave your bannersFox targets California, Hillary Clinton, Chinese people (just ask Jessie Waters as he sticks a mic in the faces of elderly Asian people who don’t speak English, to humiliate them), Democrats and so on.
That is a very privileged way of thinking. Sounds like you have benefited from systematic racism.
“Going forward, if anyone has a problem with me in the chamber, they will have to remove me,” Paladino said.
. . . and this attitude is why this pandemic has lasted for as long as it has.
She’s not in charge of any committees in the chamber, so she’s off to a flying start! Don’t be a Novax Joker, Vic.
You’re fighting a losing battle. If you’re not vaxxed, Covid will find you and he will know your vaccination status pretty quickly.
She sounds like Trump when he was talking about vaccines (before he got COVID, then the vaccine, then the booster…)