GOP Representative Criticizes Fauci for Vaccine Mandate Comments

Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia leveraged his credentials and experience to provide perhaps the best summary of so many things many of us figured out about the pandemic.

During Monday’s House subcommittee on COVID, the 55-year-old freshman Republican congressman went after the man responsible for so many of the nation’s pandemic woes, retired director of the National Institutes for Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci once said an attack on him was an attack on science.

McCormick was having none of it.

McCormick is not only a congressman, but he’s also known as Dr. Richard McCormick, a practicing emergency room physician.

He’s one of many doctors Fauci & Co. went after in their attempts to control medical practices and narratives in the pandemic.

Congress grilled Fauci Monday, and when he had the floor, McCormick was livid.

And merciless.

Townhall posts on X showed how McCormick’s experience with COVID was enmeshed in literal flesh and blood, not the statistics and computer models and, for that matter, public relations efforts of bureaucratic doctors like Fauci.

Rep. McCormick, who is a physician and helped treat patients at the beginning of the pandemic, recalls how he was censored for daring to question Fauci and other bureaucrats:

“In 2020, I was censored, my medical license was threatened, because I disagreed with bureaucrats.… pic.twitter.com/nR90pghZYy

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 3, 2024

“It’s been insinuated that only politicians, only bloggers, only conspiracy theorists are disagreeing with you,” he told Fauci.

“I want to point out that I’m probably the only member of Congress that actually treated patients during the pandemic from the very beginning to the very end of the pandemic during night shifts in the ER,” McCormick continued.

“Thousands of patients during that time. In 2020, I was censored, my medical license was threatened because I disagreed with bureaucrats.

“Literally taken off the internet, as a person who was treating patients with leading edge technologies, developing theories, doing my very best, but being censored by the United States government, for the first time stepping in and taking the place of medical professionals as the ‘experts’ in healthcare.

“Any dissent surrounding COVID-19 treatments, mask mandates, and any public policy surrounding the pandemic was immediately labeled as ‘anti-science.’”

“I watched as public health officials and politicians told my patients what treatment options were best for them, regardless of their comorbidities or their medical history.

“Despite my education, and my training, and my experience, my opinions were relegated to conspiracy and misinformation by so-called healthcare experts who had never treated a patient throughout the entire pandemic.”

He played a clip from an interview that is part of an audio book, “Fauci” by Michael Specter, in which Fauci said institutions should make life hard for people who refused to take the COVID shot.

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some readers may find offensive.

Rep. McCormick plays an interview in which Fauci said institutions should make it hard for people to live their lives to force them to “lose their ideological bullsh*t” and get vaccinated.

McCormick: Are all objections to COVID vaccinations “ideological bullsh*t?”

Fauci: No,… pic.twitter.com/aUUZ1XWhi5

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 3, 2024

“I have to say that I don’t see a big solution other than some sort of mandatory vaccination,” Fauci is heard to say on the recording. “I know federal officials don’t like to use that term.

“Once people feel empowered and protected, legally, you are gonna have schools, universities, and colleges [that] are gonna say: ‘You want to come to this college? Buddy, you’re gonna get vaccinated! Lady, you’re gonna get vaccinated!” Fauci continued.

“Big corporations, like Amazon, and Facebook, and all those others are gonna say: ‘You wanna work for us? You get vaccinated!

“And it’s been proven,” Fauci is heard to say on the recording, “that when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bulls***.

“And they get vaccinated!” he concluded.

After playing the recording, McCormick asked “Are all objections to COVID vaccinations ideological bulls***, Dr. Fauci?”

“No, they are not,” Fauci responded. “And that’s not what I was referring to …”

“Well,” McCormick interrupted. “In reference to making it hard for people to get education, traveling, working — I’d say it very much was in context. And I take very great offense to this.”

McCormick recounted testimony before the committee from Allison Williams who lost her job despite a doctor’s recommendation that while undergoing fertility treatment and due to her young age she not take the COVID shot.

“But she was fired,” he said, looking at Fauci, “because you made it hard. Just like you said in your statement, because you wanted to make sure the ideological bulls*** got in the way of her working, of living her life, of making a healthcare decision with her healthcare professional.

“I think America should take great offense to this,” McCormick continued.

“That’s exactly what you meant,” he told Fauci, “when you said making it hard for people to live without getting the vaccination.

“You affected people’s ability to work. Travel. Be educated. To actually flourish in American society. To self-determine, as well as (their) God-given rights.”

Looking down, shaking his head, McComick said: “Shame on you.”

:18 of longer McCormick Townhall clip on X.
[iii] 1:48 of longer McCormick Townhall clip on X.