There is "no good reason" that Congress hasn't delved into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rep. Michael Burgess said on Newsmax Tuesday.
"We're two years into this thing and we know no more about it today than we did two years ago as far as the origins," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "There are a lot of things that are very suspicious about the origins of this virus. People just need to be transparent and honest with us."
Further, Americans are tired of dealing with the pandemic and of the "theatrics" from experts and lawmakers, said Burgess.
"They want solutions," he said. "It doesn't help anything when they get different recommendations from all of the top scientists."
The lawmaker, who is also a medical doctor, said he does think the Senate healthcare hearing on Tuesday, and the questions being posed to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, are important.
"I'm going to do a hearing," Burgess said. "I wrote a letter to the chairman of our committee on Energy and Commerce. We are one of the committees with the largest jurisdictions over this type of problem, and we've not had a single hearing on this … we've got good men and women on both sides of the political bias of the committee.
"We should be having robust and in-depth hearings, and that's the reason I wrote a letter to the chairman. I cannot believe that our committee with its rich history has been so passive about this."
Meanwhile, Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Tuesday accused Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., of politicizing the pandemic and of causing threats to his life through his repeated attacks, and Burgess said that he doesn't know why the doctor hasn't retired by now.
"I think he did a great job during the Ebola in the Dallas area," said Burgess, referring to the 2014 outbreak. "Dr. Fauci was one of the ones that got the nurses well taken care of who got infected, and he came off looking very well at that," said Burgess.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci has had a "dogmatic adherence" to vaccines as a single line of prevention, said Burgess.
"You can't say the vaccines prevent the disease when they don't prevent the disease," said Burgess. "They may prevent you from getting sicker than you otherwise would have gotten, so maybe we need to think about the vaccines are on the therapeutic side rather than on the preventive side."
The government's approach to the coronavirus, he added, needs to be "a little more creative; a little more holistic."
Burgess also discussed President Joe Biden's trip to Georgia on Tuesday to spur support for the Democrats' voting rights bills, and said the trip is "all about trying to present states like mine that have pushed for voter identification."
Democrats are pushing for change because they want to have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer "run every election in every jurisdiction, in every precinct in this country," said Burgess. "That's not the way the founders intended."
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.