July 31, 2020 – Congressional Hearing
Chairman: [00:00:00] The chair now recognizes us for five minutes. Mr. Jordan?
Rep. Jim Jordan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Fauci, do protests increase the spread of the virus?
Dr. Fauci: Do protests increase the spread of the virus? Uh, I think I can make a general
Rep. Jim Jordan: statement. Well, half a million protesters on June 6th alone. I'm just asking that number of people.
Does it increase the spread of
Dr. Fauci: the virus crowd crowding together, particularly when you're not wearing a mast contributes to the spread of the virus. Should we limit
Rep. Jim Jordan: the protesting?
Dr. Fauci: I, I'm not sure what you mean. Should, how do we say limit the protesting
Rep. Jim Jordan: to government? Limit the protesting.
Dr. Fauci: I, I, I, I don't think that's relevant to,
Rep. Jim Jordan: well, you just said if it increases the spread of the virus.
I'm just asking should we limit it?
Dr. Fauci: Well, I'm, I'm not in a position to determine what the government can do in a
Rep. Jim Jordan: forceful way. Well, you make all kinds of recommendations. You make comments on dating, on baseball and everything you can imagine. I'm just asking you, you just said that that protests increase the spread.
I'm just asking you, should we try to limit the protests? No, I think
Dr. Fauci: I would leave that to people who have more [00:01:00] of an a position to do that.
Rep. Jim Jordan: I can tell you government stopping people from going to church. Dr. Fauci. Yeah. Last week in the Calvary Chapel case, five liberals on the Supreme Court said it was okay for Nevada.
To limit church services Governor. I mean, justice Gorsuch said it best. He said there's no, there's no world in which the Constitution permiss Nevada to favor Caesar's Palace over Calvary Chapel. I'm just asking, is there a world where the Constitution says you can favor one First Amendment? Liberty protesting right over another, practicing your faith?
Dr. Fauci: I'm not favoring anybody over anybody. I'm just making a statement. That's a broad statement that avoid crowds of any type, no matter where you are. Because that leads to the acquisition and transmission, and I don't judge one crowd versus another crowd. When you're in a crowd, particularly if you're not wearing a mask, that induces
Rep. Jim Jordan: the spread but's.
It's a simple, it's a simple question. Doctors, should we limit the protest? Government is obviously li limiting people going and, and look. I, I'm not, there's been no, there's [00:02:00] been no violence that I, I can see at church. I haven't seen people during a church service go out and, and harm police officers or burn buildings.
But we know that, I mean, for 63 days, nine weeks, it's been happening in Portland, right? Yeah. One night in Chicago, 49 officers were injured. But no limit to, no limit to protest. But boy, you can't go to church on Sunday.
Dr. Fauci: What was the, I don't know how many times I can answer that. I'm not gonna opine on limiting anything.
I'm just gonna tell you, you've
Rep. Jim Jordan: opined on a lot of things, Dr. Fauci. Yeah. But I've never seen, this is something that directly impacts the spread of the virus. And I'm asking your, your, your position on the protest.
Dr. Fauci: Yeah. Well, I'm not gonna opine on limiting anything. I'm telling you what it is. The danger, and you can make your own conclusion about that.
You should stay away from crowds no matter where the
Rep. Jim Jordan: crowds are. Government stopped. Government is. Government has stopped people from going to work. In fact, just in New Jersey four days ago, Ian Smith, Frank Trombetta, were arrested for opening up, for trying [00:03:00] to operate their business. Their Jim. They were arrested, but I, my my bet is if these two individuals owned this gym were outside just in front of their gym, and all the people who were working out in their gym were outside protesting, they'd been just fine.
But because they were in the gym working out, actually running their business, they got arrested. You think that's okay? You know,
Dr. Fauci: I'm not gonna opine on who gets arrested and who does not. I mean, I, I, you get where I'm going. I'm telling you, as a public health official, I
Rep. Jim Jordan: say crowds. Do you see the inconsistency though?
Dr. Fauci? There's no
Dr. Fauci: inconsistency, Congressman,
Rep. Jim Jordan: there's no what? There's no incon. So you're allowed to protest millions of people on one day in crowds, yelling, screaming. But you try to run your business, you get arrested, and if you stood right outside of that same business and protested, you wouldn't get arrested.
You don't see an inconsistency there. Uh,
Dr. Fauci: I don't understand what you're asking me as a public health official. To opine on who should get arrested or not. That's not my position. You could ask as
Rep. Jim Jordan: you've as much as you want. No. You've, you've advocated for certain es answer it, you've advocated for certain businesses to be [00:04:00] shut down.
I'm, I'm just asking you on your position on the protest. I'm not, I mean, I haven't seen one. We've heard a lot about hair salons. I haven't seen one hairstylist who, between haircuts goes out and attacks police or set something on fire. But we've seen all kinds of that stuff during protest and we know the protest actually increased the spread of the virus.
You've said that. I
Dr. Fauci: said crowds. I didn't say specifically. I didn't say protests do
Rep. Jim Jordan: anything. So the protests don't increase the spread of the virus? I didn't
Dr. Fauci: say
Rep. Jim Jordan: that. You're putting words in my mouth. No, I, I want, I would, I just want an answer to the question. Do the protests increase the spread of the virus?
I, I, I
Dr. Fauci: don't have any scientific evidence that anything, I can tell you that crowds are known, particularly when you don't have a mask to increase the acquisition and transmission. No
Rep. Jim Jordan: matter what the crowd, so you don't have a position on whether the protest increase the spread of the virus or don't increase the spread of the virus.
Dr. Fauci: Uh, I'm saying that crowds, wherever the crowds are, can give you an increased probability that there's gonna be [00:05:00] acquisition and transmission. But do you
Rep. Jim Jordan: understand Americans concern? Protesting according, particularly according to Democrats, is just fine. But you can't go to work. You can't go to school, you can't go to church.
There's limits placed on all three of those fundamental activities, first Amendment activities, but protestings just fine. You
Dr. Fauci: know, I'm
Chairman: the Jim. Uh, the gentleman's time has expired, but I'll just ask the gentleman to just think about his question and put it in reference to crowds that gather in political, at political meetings at fundraisers without masks on an all rig in Texas.
Nobody wearing a mask. Nobody's social distancing, but a fundraiser, right. Would that be problematic? With that, I'd yield five minutes to Mr. Foster.
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