On Monday, Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene engaged in more of her brand of political theater using the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing as her stage.
Greene screamed at and berated Dr. Anthony Fauci with disproven conspiracy theories, lies disguised by pseudoscience nonsense and false accusations. Her behavior was egregious enough to earn a reprimand from the GOP chair of the subcommittee, Representative Brad Wenstrup.
Wenstrup ordered Greene to suspend her comments.
In a Monday night appearance on CNN's The Source, Dr. Fauci said death threats made against him and his family increase each time public figures like Greene spread their COVID-19 conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation.
Dr. Fauci told host Kaitlan Collins:
“It’s a pattern."
"Whenever somebody gets up, whether it's 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 it's like clockwork, the death threats go way up."
"So, that's the reason why I'm still getting death threats, when you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today's hearing, those are the kind of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense."
Dr. Fauci noted how counterproductive Greene's performances are.
"I have testified literally hundreds of times over the last 40 years, over Congress, and there’s always been differences of opinion, differences of ideology, criticisms and things like that."
"But the level of vitriol that we see now—just in the country in general, but actually played out during this hearing—was really quite unfortunate because the purpose of hearings are to try and figure out how we can do better so that next time, if and when we are 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."
Dr. Fauci added:
“That’s not what we saw today, as shown by the clip you showed with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, that was nothing about trying to do better, unfortunately.”
Other members of the House Oversight Committee agreed that Greene's antics are just pointless disruptions.
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Plenty of others also agreed.
They include New Jersey Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell.
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You can watch the full interview with Dr. Fauci here:
Dr. Fauci noted his experience is a "powerful disincentive" for young people once interested in a career in public health.
During the hearing, Greene told Fauci he was “not a doctor” and he “belonged in prison” for “crimes against humanity” without anything to back up her multiple rants. Greene’s attack was characterized as part of far-right Republicans’ posturing on the pandemic.
Regardless of the dangerous health outcomes for their supporters during the pandemic, the attention their medical misinformation garners is their apparent goal.
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