US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) organisers have banned several puppets of the Sesame Street from the 2022 CPAC event after a social media account for one of them made a post about COVID-19 vaccination. In its Twitter account, CPAC announced that Sesame Street's Elmo, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie are "not invited" to the February 2022 event.
"Big Bird & Big Gov. Mandates? No thank you", CPAC captured one of the images.
The "mandates" part of the message presumably refers to the vaccination mandates for government employees and businesses issued by US President Joe Biden earlier this year and strongly opposed by conservatives.
Big Bird's social media account recently boasted taking its COVID-19 vaccine, while stressing that it will help "keep others healthy". US President Joe Biden praised Big Bird's tweet, but, at the same time, GOP Senator Ted Cruz lambasted it as "government propaganda for your 5 year old".
Despite banning Sesame Street's characters from the CPAC 2022 (not that they announced any plans to visit the country's biggest event for conservatives), the organisers said they would welcome their rivals from The Muppet Show - Sam the Eagle, Statler, and Waldorf. It is unclear, however, why the CPAC organisers chose to invite them and if the muppets will attend the event.