Former presidential medical adviser clashed with far-right congresswoman when he testified in front of the House Oversight Committee on Monday about the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic
Dr Anthony Fauci has accused Marjorie Taylor Greene of inspiring death threats against him.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases clashed with the Republican firebrand lawmaker at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on Monday in which he gave testimony about the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the hearing, Greene told Fauci he was “not a doctor” and that he “belonged in prison” for “crimes against humanity” amid heated questioning. She also accused him of experimenting on beagles with disease-causing parasites.
…
“Whenever somebody gets up, whether it’s the news media you know, Fox News does it a lot or it’s somebody in the Congress who gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of x number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus — immediately — you could like clockwork, the death threats, go way up,” Fauci said during an appearance with Kaitlan Collins on CNN.
During the hearing, Greene told Fauci he was “not a doctor” and that he “belonged in prison” for “crimes against humanity” amid heated questioning. She also accused him of experimenting on beagles with disease-causing parasites.
“As a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil, what you signed off on, and these experiments that happened to beagles paid for by the American taxpayer,” she said. “And I want you to know that Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured liked this.”
Unusual? How about unhinged?
The vaccine is for a virus, which is a replicating protein, not a parasite.
Dogs are by definition not humanity, but the billions of people who were protected from the virus certainly are.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/4/22-1727_article
I doubt she knows how the makeup she cakes on her face is tested.
I wonder if, as a dog lover, she supports Kristi Noem?
You know Kristi Noem is different because she’s a Republican.
(We all know that, but it needs to be said out loud)
I’m picturing her saying something like, “as a dog lover, I know that some dogs need to be led to a gravel pit and shot.”
Only if they do exactly what their owner trained them to do.
I enjoy how the party of law and order just wants to consistently ignore laws and order and demands immediate imprisonment of anybody who makes them look bad. It’s been going on for years, but its intensity since Cheeto diapers came around has increased exponentially.
“law and order” is just dog whistle for using cops to harass outgroups.
Don’t ever ever forget that the cruelty is the point. They don’t give a fuck about the law.
I wonder whether she’s in charge of the group trying to press people to sign pledges to reject any drug, product or procedure tested on animals, or whether she’s even signed it.
I mean, it basically volunteers to be the animals these things are tested on if everyone signs - you just get no vaccines or tooth regrowing or surgeries until then while they’re still tested on animals other than you - but that’s not obvious to stupid people.
Just as a quick aside to note that making death threats is a crime.
I’m still kind of amazed that we know exactly what shows, links, and ads these people like but when they make death threats the powers that be are all “who?? What?? Where??”
The trick is that it has to be a threat, and if we’re being honest then the more money and power you have the more obviously threatening it must be.
DON’T SAY: “I’m going to kill you.”
DO SAY: “It would be great if you died right now.”
And if you have influence and/or money, feel free to say: “I wish someone would kill you.”
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
“Because the purpose of hearings are to try and figure out how we can do better so that next time if and when we all faced with a pandemic we’d be better prepared and we could benefit if mistakes were made; we identify them and we try to correct them for the future,” he added.
Fauci said that, and I’m sure thats why prior Congresses held hearings like this, but I’m sure he knows that the reason why this hearing was called was specifically to make those performances. MTG was put in that committee specifically to say those things while Fauci was in the room, in an election year.
But, since Fauci is a bit of a politican as well as a scientist, he knows he can’t just say that. So he goes and says something that at least suggests to people how weird this all is.
History will not be kind to MTG’s utter stupidity, blatant lying and overwhelming hypocrisy.
History will forget her.
How many people remember stupid congresspeople from 30 years ago?
Imhofe bringing a snowball to the Senate floor, this disproving climate change, for example. You and i and historians might, but average Joe on the street?
She’s doing fine. She’s made a bunch of money grifting as a Congresswoman. I hate it also but that’s the reality. She’s doing fine so far and hasn’t been hit with felony charges like other Trumpanzees have.
History is written by the victors, though.
Fucken Victor. Give me back my shiny gengar card you animal.
It will if their side wins.
I mean, we’re not kind today.
At what point is someone going to say enough with her crazy bullshit and expel her for disorderly behavior? Pretty sure enough people are fed up with her to get a two-thirds…
Yeah it’d be nice if everyone was just like “yeah you’re a nuisance and haven’t done anything positive once and only produce negative bullshit constantly so you’re now removed from office and no longer allowed to speak publicly or appear on TV because you obviously bring no good to anyone whatsoever and the world would be a better off place without you in it. If you could just crawl under a rock and die, everyone on earth would appreciate it.”
Trump would kill the vote.
She’s a stochastic terrorist, as are many of the American far right. They are already responsible for many mass shootings, murders, and threats of violence.
Mtg is unusual by default. She gives blondes a bad name as shes more than a few bricks light
She’s a bottle blonde.
But she gives humanity a bad name.
Trudat
Yeah… that’s all she’s good for and unfortunately we live in a clown based reality now where anyone identifying as a Republican is allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.
It sure why the word “unusual” is there, this is typical behavior for the loopy dopey dipshit. Bad built etc.
To not normalize her insanity.
Good answer, I like it.
Effortpost that’s going to get misinterpreted and downvoted to hell.
During the hearing, Greene told Fauci he . . . “belonged in prison” for “crimes against humanity”
This is a case of accidentally telling the truth by lying twice. Fauci and the CDC massively mishandled the pandemic and lied to the public… by claiming that masks don’t work.
Masks absolutely do work, there has never been any serious scientific questions about this. It’s a respiratory illness. Countries like China, Vietnam, etc. always knew to use masks, right from the start. But for some reason, in Feb 2020, the surgeon general was tweeting this:
Masks absolutely do work, but Fauci is on record saying the exact same stuff on 60 Minutes. CNN even ran articles like, “Masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns,” and “Masks can’t stop the coronavirus in the US, but hysteria has led to bulk-buying, price-gouging and serious fear for the future,” containing many of the false narratives that would later become core parts of the anti-mask truthers.
Masks absolutely do work, so why did they do this? Two reasons. First, to cover for the fact that the Trump administration sold off the PPE necessary to be prepared for this eventuality. Second, because Fauci has a history of supporting libertarian policies prioritizing the safety of doctors over the general public. In fact, Fauci didn’t just mishandle one pandemic, he mishandled three.
During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, Fauci opposed quarantines for doctors returning from treating the illness abroad, calling them “draconian.” Several Democratic governors implemented measures anyway, but there was no federal policy. Ebola is much more deadly than COVID and it could’ve been devastating if we hadn’t gotten lucky or if those quarantines hadn’t been implemented on a local level.
The third one he mishandled (or rather, the first) was AIDS. I won’t get into details, but Fauci was the NIH director under Reagan, and prominent queer activists were saying things like that he was “a murderer” who “should be put before firing squad”
These truths have been buried under a mountain of bullshit spewed out by the right, to the point that making these legitimate criticisms of Fauci makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist. But unlike all the anti-mask bullshit, what I’ve said is true and supported by evidence. As someone who studied science in school, I’m ashamed that a scientist would break the public trust in such a way, and the fact that he was able to get away with it and brand himself as some sort of hero of science makes it so much worse. Science is still very reliable, but it can be compromised by politics, and it’s important to verify information from a variety of sources from different countries and international organizations - not just the CDC.
Fauci has a history of supporting libertarian policies prioritizing the safety of doctors over the general public
[Citation needed], but let’s assume this isn’t made up because I want to know:
Did you mean to say that people who can treat the sick shouldn’t be the most protected during an epidemic? If the doctors aren’t safe, we’re ALL kinda unsafe, right? But I get why on airplanes they tell you to put your own mask on last.~
But I get why on airplanes they tell you to put your own mask on last.
What did you mean by this? Are you talking about the oxygen masks in the event of an emergency? Because on airplanes you are told to put your mask on first before helping others. This is to prevent you from passing out before helping a child or someone else who needs assistance.
[Citation needed]
The citation is in the next paragraph.
Did you mean to say that people who can treat the sick shouldn’t be the most protected during an epidemic? If the doctors aren’t safe, we’re ALL kinda unsafe, right?
In the case of Ebola, it wasn’t the doctors’ safety but their convenience that he was concerned about. In the case of COVID, he prioritized doctors’ safety to the point of lying to the public, which contributed to the spread of misinformation and breakdown of public trust, resulting in countless unnecessary deaths.
When the CDC finally started telling the truth about masks, people were able to start making cloth masks at home and donating them to hospitals. Had he been honest from the start, that could’ve happened much earlier.
The safety of doctors and healthcare workers is very important, but it doesn’t justify breaking public trust. Public trust in science is crucial, and when it breaks down you get people refusing to vaccinate their kids and drinking raw milk and other such nonsense. Honesty is a fundamental part of scientific ethics. What he did violated the Hippocratic Oath.
Ebola can only be transmitted by blood… Other body fluids may cause transmission for a person only if they are already showing symptoms… I’m pretty sure doctors who specifically flew abroad to help with this disease would know this … Quarantining them would likely do nothing
Arguing against a panicked Karen rule which would only hurt the few people actually helping fight this disease sounds like the right thing to do
Fauci is far from perfect but you are basically making the same hysterical claims MTG is doing, albeit without spitting as much, pretending the guy carrying a lighter in his pocket is as much at fault as the idiots in charge (Trump and co at the time) who completely fumbled the response to the worst pandemic in a century… Showing once again, Murica is a functionally a third would country with money
Even if the likelihood was low, the enormous harm that could have been caused by Ebola spreading to the US outweighs a mere inconvenience for a small number of people.
Trump obviously spread tons of misinformation and mishandled everything, and had he not sold the PPE in the first place, there’d have been no reason for Fauci to lie. But I hold scientists to a higher standard of conduct than politicians. When Fauci spoke, he was speaking to the public as a representative of scientists in general, and when he lied and damaged public trust, he did damage to uncountable scientific efforts that will take decades to repair, if it can be repaired at all. That sort of betrayal of trust is a serious offense.
I fully expect every word that comes out of any president’s mouth to be a lie, but I used to trust the CDC, and now I can’t.
Even if the likelihood was low, the enormous harm that could have been caused by Ebola spreading to the US outweighs a mere inconvenience for a small number of people.
By this logic and threshold, the only logical solution would be to isolate entirely… No more flights, no more imports. The current risk of all that traffic is way higher than the risk you are clutching pearls about now
I fully expect every word that comes out of any president’s mouth to be a lie, but I used to trust the CDC, and now I can’t.
Ok, good luck with that …
By this logic and threshold, the only logical solution would be to isolate entirely… No more flights, no more imports.
Thank you for that clearly good faith interpretation of what I said, but you actually misunderstood me.
The cost benefit analysis of making a handful of people have three weeks of quarantine to add a extra layer of security against a deadly pandemic ravaging the country makes it worth it. The cost benefit of “shutting down all trade” is obviously no longer worth the tradeoff.
By your logic, you should be an anti-masker, since accepting any level of inconvenience to mitigate risk of spreading disease is totally unacceptable and it’s apparently all-or-nothing with no room for middle ground with you.
In fact, fuck lab goggles. Scientists and doctors are super smart and never make mistakes or have accidents so who needs 'em? If you’re going to wear lab goggles, why not shut down the whole global economy while you’re at it, that’s basically the same thing. Right?
Cost benefit? I thoight you said no matter of the likelihood was low…
You seem to have gotten lost, this is a top level comment.
to be fair the pandemic handling did fucking suck and ruin lives. there were stories about how people couldn’t say goodbye to dying relatives because of “distancing rules” (which the Washington Post confirmed were basically picked out of thin air, obviously) which is just blatantly inhumane and obviously careless. you’re not building public trust or respect with rules like that. i’d happily get covid if i could say goodbye to my mom before she dies, fuck you.
You win the “worlds most dangerously selfish and unempathetic” person award.
lmao it’s unempathetic to say people should be able to say goodbye to loved ones. covid was spreading everywhere anyway! if that hugely meaningful interaction didn’t get them infected, work or school or the gas station or a hotel or a restaurant would the next day anyway.
“Millions of people were dying anyway, so I should have been able to say goodbye to my third cousin Phil in person instead of via video chat!”
People with your attitude are why millions died needlessly. Yes, you’re unempathetic.
And how many moms will die because of your plague rat ass?
Tagged you: “dumb as a rock”.
Hey sorry it’s off topic but how do you “tag” people? I’ve seen a few people say this and can’t figure it out, I’m guessing it’s my app’s fault.
I would also like to know how to tag this guy as dumb as a rock
The handling of the pandemic was terrible and was a play on the lives of hundreds of millions that we’re still recovering from today. No point arguing with the basement dwellers of Lemmy, because that’s where they were. I’m no denier or whatever from any stretch of the imagination, but god damn, thinking this was handled appropriately is a very unpopular opinion in the real world.
