Jan 6 Commission a Joke as Mandatory Vaccines Enter Discussion
The David Pakman Show - July 21, 2021
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Dr. Fauci Accused Rand Paul of Being Clueless, Not Knowing What He's Talking About
Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before a Senate committee on the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic and he had yet another back-and-forth with Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul has recently been hung up on the theory that gain of function research at the Wuhan Virology Institute was funded by the United States government and that there has been an effort by Fauci and others to cover it up. Paul opened the exchange by arguing that Fauci lied about funding this type of research to Congress during a prior testimony and asked the nation’s top infectious disease expert if he wished to retract his statement knowing that it’s a crime to lie to Congress. Fauci doubled down, saying he never lied to Congress, and that “this paper that you are referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function.” In a moment of candor, Fauci followed up by telling Paul “you do not know what you are talking about.”
These spats between Dr. Fauci and Senator Paul are becoming routine now and they’re really quite emblematic of the right’s obsession with making public health officials look bad. These right wingers see the work of infectious disease experts trying to bring an end to a one-in-one hundred year pandemic and think they are enemies and that the ideas they are presenting are threats to liberty and the American way. Dr. Fauci has been universally hated by the American right ever since it was clear that he was growing at odds with Donald Trump in the spring of 2020. Soon after, folks like Rand Paul began taking the marching orders and criticizing anyone doing good work on combatting COVID-19. For Fauci, this is about trying to get people vaccinated and implementing the right mitigation measures to prevent more viral spread. For Paul, it’s about making a show so that he can boost his brand by having clips of his encounters circulate within right-wing media circles.
Kayleigh McEnany: Imagine If Trump Was Struggling Cognitively
Kayleigh McEnany was a chief provider of misinformation during her time working as Trump’s White House Press Secretary and now she has taken her talents to Fox News, appearing regularly as a commentator. Recently, McEnany was on Sean Hannity’s primetime program and was asked to compare the cognitive ability of Joe Biden to her old boss, Donald Trump. Hannity set up the question: “can you imagine, Kayleigh, if this was Donald Trump’s record or Donald Trump was struggling cognitively like this?” McEnany replied by saying she “can’t imagine” what that would be like and then referenced the former president’s surprise visits to Walter Reed Medical Center. The right wing is back to criticizing Joe Biden for losing a step in his advanced age, because they are having a difficult time finding a substantive point of policy to criticize Biden on that will stick.
The issue with criticizing Biden’s cognitive ability, and the issue with Hannity’s question and McEnany’s answer, is that Trump routinely had glitches and mishaps that made people question whether he was all there. The former president repeatedly referred to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic as having occurred in 1917 and one time even said it ended the Second World War, which happened decades later. He got hung up on the “oranges of the investigation” and referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple.” Trump had plenty of moments where his mind would short circuit during speeches while his body twitched and he’s had to reset himself. Trump certainly was not the gold standard of health or cognitive ability during his years in the White House, but listening to Fox News propagandists would make people believe that he was.
From yesterday’s show:
Terrified Fox News Suddenly "Promoting" Vaccines
Fox News is slowly moving in the direction of recommending its viewers get vaccinated for COVID-19. Ever since the vaccine program began in the United States, Fox hosts would play coy about whether or not the vaccines are safe and effective and whether lower risk and young folks need to get the shots. Many of these same hosts were vaccinated themselves, but did not want to upset their audiences who by in large were more skeptical. Recently, Brian Kilmeade mentioned that he and his fellow Fox & Friends hosts have been vaccinated. Steve Doocy followed up by saying at this point that “99% of the people who are dying from COVID are unvaccinated.” These are fantastic points to be bringing up on the Fox News airwaves and they could absolutely be the tipping point for vaccine hesitant people to go out and get their shots. The need for messaging like this is super important with the highly contagious Delta variant on the rise and cases soaring back up in the United States.
--More on the show:
--The commission established to investigate the January 6 Trump riots will contain Republican members of Congress who incited and instigated the Trump riots
--Demand grows for actual government-mandated vaccination
--Fox News hosts have spent months slamming "vaccine passports" without disclosing that Fox News is using a vaccine passport for employees
--MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is now supporting Alex Jones' conspiracy website Infowars
--Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended from Twitter for spreading COVID and vaccine disinformation
--Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene holds an outrageous "press conference" which raises real questions about her mental health
--Voicemail caller wants David to resume interviewing "loony people"
--On the Bonus Show: US states ending federal unemployment benefits see no real job gains, CA will launch nation's largest free student lunch program, US judge upholds Indian University vaccine requirement, much more...
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