LA County Sheriff Villanueva refuses to enforce vaccine mandate at his agency: 'Severely understaffed'

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva doubled down on his decision not to enforce a vaccine mandate at his department on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Monday.

The mandate required all Los Angeles County employees to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 1 and has exemptions only for religious and medical reasons.  His department is already down close to 1,000 employees. The sheriff’s department employs around 18,000 workers.

"I have 1,600 potential people that have 28 years or more of service," he said. "They could just walk away and not lose a penny and not even look back, and that is a huge threat to the department which is already severely understaffed."

Villanueva said it takes him nearly a year and a half to replace an entry-level worker. "To replace a veteran thirty-year expert in whatever capacity — for example, homicide investigator,  those are decades it takes to replace somebody like that, and you cannot quantify the impact that it has on public safety," he said.