At a time when former President Donald Trump is surprising his critics by encouraging Americans to get vaccinated for COVID-19, the House Judiciary GOP posted an anti-vax tweet this week. The tweet in question has since been removed, but it is still being slammed as misleading and irresponsible.
On Thursday, a tweet from @JudiciaryGOP read, “If the booster shots work, why don’t they work?” In fact, booster shots of the COVID vaccines have been shown to significantly increase immunity and protect recipients from the coronavirus, including the latest omicron variant.
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That claim echoed what Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio posted on December 23:
Hey Fauci,
If masks and mandates work, why don’t they work?
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) December 23, 2021
Actually, they work well. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top White House medical adviser, has been stressing that although it is certainly possible to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and get infected anyway, the vaccinated are much more likely to survive a COVID-19 infection than the unvaccinated. At this point, the vast majority of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States are among the unvaccinated — which @JudiciaryGOP failed to mention.
They finally deleted it. pic.twitter.com/PVkJGFihze
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 31, 2021
Nick Beaudrot, in response to the House Judiciary GOP tweet, posted:
Patrick Chovanec was equally critical of @JudiciaryGOP, posting:
Really disgraceful that the GOP House Judiciary Committee is pushing an opening anti-vax message now.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) December 31, 2021
Politico’s Sam Stein noted that the anti-vaxxer tweet from @JudiciaryGOP is totally different from what Trump has been saying about vaccines. During a recent appearance in Dallas with radio host Bill O’Reilly, Trump revealed that he had received a COVID-19 booster shot and encouraged others to do the same.
Interesting. the House Judiciary GOP account erased its tweet calling into question whether boosters workedhttps://t.co/3cFSCcSKtj
— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 31, 2021
Seeing this shared a ton for how overtly anti-vaccine it is. The other interesting element is that comes a little bit after Trump himself pushed boosters—suggesting that there will be a divide in the GOP ranks that the party will have to reconcile. https://t.co/3cFSCcSKtj
— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 31, 2021
Here are some more reactions to @JudiciaryGOP’s anti-vaxxer tweet:
Even more evidence that the GOP is embarked upon a campaign of sabotage of the country in order to regain power.
— Dennis P. Crawford (@DennisPCrawford) December 31, 2021
Getting vaccinated isn’t about politics. It’s about staying healthy & saving lives.
Our society is seriously messed up when politics plays a role in your decision not to get vaccinated.
It’s lunacy.
— Lincoln Watchman (@LincolnWatchman) December 30, 2021
Odds are they were contacted by Twitter to remove it or be suspended due to COVID misinformation rules
— WVASPARTAN (@wvaspartan) December 31, 2021