MTG goes off the rails and turns the Fauci hearing into an absolute shitshow

MAGA Congresswoman and professional attention-seeker Marjorie Taylor Greene turned Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony before the House of Representatives into a freak show on Monday when she pointedly refused to call the former White House chief medical adviser a “doctor” and demanded that he be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”

The hearing on Capitol Hill, which was Fauci’s first public appearance there since resigning in late 2022, was held by a House subcommittee investigating the United States response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the origins of the virus. Shortly before his appearance, the panel released transcripts of his 14 hours of closed-door testimony in January, in which he said he did not believe the “lab leak” theory was a conspiracy theory but insisted the virus arose naturally.

Greene, who has long railed against COVID vaccines and called the pandemic a “manufactured plague,” began her questioning of Fauci by accusing him of “signing off” medical experiments on dogs. She falsely claimed he did so as director of the National Institute of Health. (Fauci previously served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.)

House Oversight Committee hearing goes completely off the rails thanks to MTG

“As a dog lover, I want to tell you that this is disgusting and evil,” Greene exclaimed, holding up disturbing images of dogs involved in experiments. “The kind of science you are advocating, Mr. Fauci, is abhorrent! And it must stop.” The Georgia lawmaker, who has been repeatedly fined during the pandemic for not wearing a mask in the House, continued to dismiss the infectious disease specialist’s qualifications.

While you are a Daily Mail In her headline, she claimed that Fauci once admitted he “made up” COVID guidelines on social distancing and face mask-wearing for children, after which he backtracked.

“I never said I made this up,” Fauci said. “I said it was not based on science and it just came out.” Fauci had previously pointed out in his testimony that this was based on his non-public testimony, while also pointing out that the guidelines originally came from the Centers for Disease Control.

Greene again recalled the image of beagles and joked, “But that’s science,” to which Fauci exclaimed, “What do dogs have to do with all this we’re talking about today?”

After moving on to reports showing that the NIH had received $710 million in royalties from pharmaceutical companies since the start of the pandemic, Greene wondered if that was “appropriate” for the scientific community. “Do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci? Because you don’t deserve that, doctor. In my few minutes, you are Mr. Fauci,” she added. “No, I don’t need your answer.”

At this point, Democrats in the hearing had had enough and called for a point of order from Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), the committee chairman.

“Can we, as a matter of decency, deny a doctor the status of a doctor just because we don’t want him to be a doctor?” asked Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

“Yes, because in my day that man didn’t deserve a license!” Green replied. “In fact, he should be stripped of his license and sent to prison!”

After Wenstrup instructed Greene to address Fauci as a doctor, other Democrats wondered aloud whether “we have evolved in this direction,” prompting the pro-Trump congresswoman to echo a Democratic colleague’s previous reference to the infamous Tuskegee experiments.

“You know, we can do that by hearing about the poor men who were injected with syphilis, because I support you in that. That is horrific,” Greene said, although it is unclear whether she believed Fauci was involved in those studies from the 1930s. “And this administration that is doing this to Americans shows no decency to the American people.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who lost both parents to COVID and praised Fauci for his policies, said it was “completely unacceptable” to deny a “respected” member of the medical community his rightful title, prompting Greene to sneer that Fauci was “disrespected.”

After Wenstrup reminded Greene to stop calling Fauci “doctor,” the congresswoman shouted, “I reclaim my time,” before the chair read through the House rules of decorum and asked members to refrain from personal attacks. Garcia and others responded that their words should also be deleted, to which Greene predictably responded in kind.

Finally, a visibly angered Wenstrup repeated his rebuke of Greene and urged the other members to show respect to their colleagues. Nevertheless, Greene continued to berate Fauci for his “repulsive evil science” before again calling for his imprisonment.

“You know what this committee should do? We should recommend that you be prosecuted. We should issue a criminal complaint because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity,” she raged. “You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci!”

Moments after this confused exchange, Garcia personally apologized to the former White House adviser.

“Dr. Fauci, I’m so sorry you had to sit through that. That was completely irresponsible,” Garcia said. “This may be the craziest hearing I’ve ever attended! I’ve only been in Congress for a year and a half, but I’m so sorry you’re being subjected to such attacks and insanity.”

Garcia was not the only Democrat to apologize for the treatment he received from conservatives. Raskin began his testimony by taking a swipe at Donald Trump, mocking Republicans for supporting the former president after his conviction.

“Some of our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud. They treat you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon,” Raskin joked. “In fact, you probably wish they would treat you like a convicted felon, because they treat convicted felons with love and admiration. Some of them blindly worship convicted felons.”

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