Dr. Anthony Fauci has become the "one-all and be-all" for everything COVID-related, and his "arrogance" is keeping people from caring what he has to say, including information on vaccinations, Rep. Greg Murphy told Newsmax on Monday.
"He wants to mandate everything," the North Carolina Republican, who is also a doctor, told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "America is not listening to him. The people who are not vaccinated are not listening to him."
Murphy's comments come after Fauci, who is President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said over the weekend that he believes mask mandates should remain in effect for air travel, and after he said on MSNBC Monday that the government should consider a vaccine requirement to allow people to fly domestically.
"They've shown that on these planes, the scrubber mechanisms are highly efficient in keeping this virus away," Murphy said, adding that Fauci's words don't do much but increase the national tension level on COVID-19.
"We just need to continue to move forward and try to do the best that we can, fully understanding that life is not without risk," said Murphy. "I've been very much an advocate for getting vaccinated. I just don't think these mandates do anything to move the needle."
He also noted that most people understand the severity of the COVID pandemic and the seriousness of what is happening, but they are also "over the pandering of fear."
Murphy said he does respect, in some ways, Fauci's medical opinions but "I don't respect his arrogance, and I think the people of this country don't like his arrogance."
And when a doctor is arrogant or doesn't have a good bedside manner, "that makes all the difference in the world in how you present things to patients," said Murphy.
"What's happened is he has presented [information] with such an air of arrogance that people don't listen to it," said Murphy. "He doesn't give an inviting tone. He doesn't give an understanding tone, which really would make, in my opinion, much more of a difference in getting people vaccinated."
Murphy also said he thinks it's time to step back and look at the pandemic as a health issue and reconsider the lockdowns and shutdowns.
"We've seen such a skyrocketing depression and subsequent substance abuse," said Murphy. "We're not looking at those factors. All we're doing is centering on COVID, COVID, COVID."
He added that he's writing a letter to the National Institutes of Health to ask for a study about how many people have died because of restrictions over COVID rather than the disease itself.
"This mandating of companies is nothing but a forced gesture to try to get people vaccinated," said Murphy. "If you do a better job of educating them, I think it would go far greater to getting the number of people in this country to accept being vaccinated."
Murphy also discussed comments made by Vice President Kamala Harris, who said she believes her biggest failure in office so far is not to have gotten out of Washington, D.C., more often.
"[President Joe] Biden and Harris created the problem at the border," Murphy said. "She loves to say that she's vice president. She really loves to tout that title … so why don't you do something? Why don't you actually make your job meaningful? She's not done anything. She was only forced to go to the border one time because [former President Donald] Trump was going there. She's not been back."
And if Harris isn't going to do the job, then she should "step aside and let somebody else do it, but don't make excuses," said Murphy. "The Democrats are making excuses for her poor, very poor performance since day one," said Murphy.
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