How a President Biden could get us a mask mandate

It's actually pretty simple.

The president IS the chief executive.

The executive branch has nearly 20 Cabinet departments and dozens of independent agencies.

All do a lot of federal purchasing.

So, you start by saying you will only buy products from companies that have internal mask mandates. If you want to get really hardball, you expand that to something like:

"The federal government can no longer buy products from companies with location in states with no mask mandates."

In other words, meat processors in South Dakota? Federal building and department lunchrooms no can do on buying your pork. That would get Kristi Noem's attention for sure.

Extend it from there, under the interstate commerce clause, to stop other products from leaving states with no, or tissue-paper-thin, mask rules. Defense manufacturing would be a biggie, because a president, Biden or somebody with bigger balls, could add "national security" in a way that reverse-spins Trump on meatpackers.

Also getting the attention of a Kristi Noem would be federalizing the National Guard in states with Indian reservations that require masks when the state government doesn't. Tribes are sovereign nations per the Constitution, so this would all be legit, too.