If there’s one person you don’t want to mess with, it’s California Rep. from the 43rd district, Maxine Waters. Someone should have warned Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of just.
The heated exchange happened during a hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci and conservative Ohio Rep. Jordan, who grilled the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases about when America will be able to lose guidelines around COVID-19 and “regain their freedom and liberties.”
Fauci told Jordan that guidances would be lifted when more Americans were vaccinated and the case numbers were low enough to prove that the vaccine was "no longer a threat." But Jordan was unrelenting, demanding Fauci for an exact date.
"We had 15 days of 'slow the spread' turn into one year of lost liberty," Jordan said. "What metrics, what measures, what has to happen before Americans get more freedoms back?”
"You're indicating liberty and freedom. I look at it as a public health measure to prevent people from dying and going to the hospital," Fauci responded. "This will end, for sure, when we get the level of infection very low. It is now at such a high level, there is a threat again of major surges."
At one point, Fauci later told Jordan, "You're making this a personal thing and it isn't."
"It's not a personal thing," Jordan slapped back.
"No, you are," Fauci said. "That is exactly what you're doing."
Fauci defended his findings, simply saying they were consistent with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 guidance.
"Right now, we have about 60,000 infections a day, which is a very large risk for resurge. We're not talking about liberties. We're talking about a pandemic that has killed 560,000 Americans," Fauci said.
The back and forth didn’t end until the subcommittee chair, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, announced that Jordan's time expired.
When Jordan attempted to continue his grilling of Fauci, Waters interjected from across the room, saying, "You need to respect the chair and shut your mouth.”