MAGA congresswoman and professional attention-seeker Marjorie Taylor Greene turned Dr. Anthony Fauci’s House testimony into a freak show on Monday when she pointedly refused to call the former White House chief medical adviser “doctor” and demanded he be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”
The Capitol Hill hearing, which was Fauci’s first public appearance there since retiring in late 2022, was held by a House subcommittee investigating the United States’ COVID-19 pandemic response and the origins of the virus. Just ahead of his appearance, the panel released transcripts of his closed-door, 14-hour testimony in January, during which he said he doesn’t believe the “lab leak” theory is a conspiracy theory but maintained that the virus occurred naturally.
Greene, who has long railed against COVID vaccines and described the pandemic as a “manufactured plague,” began her questioning of Fauci by accusing him of “signing off” on medical experiments using dogs, erroneously saying he did so as the director of the National Institute of Health. (Fauci was previously the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.)
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“As a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil,” Greene exclaimed while holding up disturbing images of canines involved in experiments. “So the type of science that you are representing, Mr. Fauci, is abhorrent! And it needs to stop.” The Georgia lawmaker, who was repeatedly fined during the pandemic for not wearing a mask on the House floor, continued to dismiss the infectious disease specialist’s credentials.
While holding up a Daily Mail headline, she claimed Fauci once admitted to “making up” COVID guidelines on social distancing and children wearing face masks, prompting him to push back.
“I never said I made it up,” Fauci declared. “I said it is not based in science and it just appeared.” Earlier in his testimony, Fauci noted that this came from his closed-door testimony while also pointing out that the guidance initially came from the Centers for Disease Control.
Greene once again held up the image of beagles while, snarking, “but this is science,” leading Fauci to exclaim: “What do dogs have to do with anything we’re talking about today?”
After moving on to reports showing that the NIH 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’re not, doctor. You’re Mr. Fauci in my few minutes,” she added. “No, I don’t need your answer.”
At that point, Democrats in the hearing had enough and demanded a point of order from Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), the committee’s chairman.
“In terms of the rules of decorum, are we allowed to deny a doctor is a doctor just because we don’t want him to be a doctor?” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wondered.
“Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license!” Green fired back. “As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison!”
After Wenstrup ordered Greene to address Fauci as a doctor, other Democrats wondered aloud if “this is what we’ve devolved into” only for the pro-Trump congresswoman to bring up a Democratic colleague’s previous invocation of the infamous Tuskegee experiments.
“You know, we can do that hearing about the poor men that were injected with syphilis because I support you in that. That’s horrific,” Greene said, though it’s unclear whether she thought Fauci was involved in those studies from the 1930s. “And this government to do things like that to Americans doesn’t have decorum 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 proper title, only for Greene to sneer that Fauci was “not respected.”
After Wenstrup reminded Greene to call Fauci “doctor,” the congresswoman shouted, “I’m reclaiming my time” before the chairman read through the House’s rules on decorum asking members to refrain from making personal attacks. Garcia and others responded that her words should also be taken down, predictably leading Greene to react in kind.
Eventually, a visibly annoyed Wenstrup reiterated his reprimand of Greene while asking other members to show respect towards their colleagues. Nevertheless, Greene continued to berate Fauci for his “repulsive evil science” before yet again calling for him to be imprisoned.
“You know what this committee should be doing? We should be recommending you to be prosecuted. We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity,” she raged. “You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci!”
Moments after the unhinged exchange, Garcia personally apologized to the former White House adviser.
“Dr. Fauci, I am so sorry you just had to sit through that. That was completely irresponsible,” Garcia said. “This might be the most insane hearing I’ve actually attended! I’ve only been in Congress for a year and a half, but I am so sorry that you are subjected to this level of attacks and insanity.”
Garcia wasn’t the only Democrat to offer an apology over the treatment he received at the hands of conservatives. Early in the testimony, Raskin took a swipe at Donald Trump while mocking Republicans for backing the ex-president following his criminal conviction.
“Some of our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud. They’re treating you, Dr Fauci, like a convicted felon,” Raskin quipped. “Actually you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon, they treat convicted felons with love and admiration. Some of them blindly worship convicted felons.”
