CHD’s Mary Holland Interviews Sen. Ron Johnson on COVID, Censorship and the Scientific and Technological ‘Elite’

Sen. Ron Johnson and Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland discussed the failures of the COVID-19 response, the lack of oversight in Congress, and the erosion of First Amendment rights during a conversation Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation’s Weaponization of U.S. Government Symposium.

“Nothing we did during COVID made sense whatsoever — it was all insane,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO, on Tuesday during a conversation at the Heritage Foundation’s Weaponization of U.S. Government Symposium.

The two discussed the failures of the COVID-19 response, the lack of oversight in Congress and the erosion of First Amendment rights.

Holland praised Johnson for being “one of the very few in Congress” to fight back against the “weaponization of the whole of government” during the pandemic.

Johnson, known for his stance against government overreach, shared his experiences and insights on the state of American politics, the dangers of big government, and the government’s resistance to oversight and accountability.

Responding to Holland’s questions about Congress’ lack of action during the pandemic, Johnson strongly criticized his colleague and their vilification of dissenting doctors.

Scientific and technological ‘elite’ driving public policy

Johnson urged listeners to revisit President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961, which warned against four key dangers: the military-industrial complex, publicly funded scientific research, the plundering of children’s futures, and the descent into a state of “dreadful fear and hate.”

Eisenhower’s concern about public funding of research was that scientists would pursue grants rather than science, and “We’d end up with a scientific and technological elite that’s going to drive public policy,” Johnson said. “That’s what we saw in COVID.”

Noting that Eisenhower didn’t spend much time on the fourth concern — global society descending into a state of fear and hate — Johnson said this “might be the most important one, as it relates to COVID.”

“That’s what drives all this,” he said. “Scare the you-know-what out of the population, whether it’s about climate change, whether it’s about foreign adversaries.”

Johnson cited a 1965 broadcast by Paul Harvey, who said democracies fail not because of external enemies but from internal decay.

“America is rotting from within, and we’re not properly addressing it,” Johnson said.

Lawmakers ‘don’t want anybody looking’

Holland asked Johnson why Congress seemed absent during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Constitution was “shattered” and people were sent home and locked down.

Johnson attributed the lack of action to the fact that members of Congress continue to vote for expanding government, with spending reaching around $6.9 trillion this year.

“The board of directors of this financial entity … just keep funding it, year after year after year,” he said. Johnson pointed to the neverending calls for spending more on defense, science and pandemic response. “There’s always some excuse for it.”

Johnson shared his personal experience as a ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which he believes should be the U.S. Senate’s premier oversight investigatory body.

However, when he became the ranking member, his funding was cut, leaving him with only five staff members to conduct oversight over millions of government employees.

“That’s how unserious Congress is about oversight because they really don’t want anybody looking into how they misspent taxpayer money,” Johnson said.

He also criticized his colleagues’ reluctance to investigate the government’s COVID-19 response and the potential adverse effects of vaccines, given how many “got in front of a video camera” and pushed the vaccines on their constituents.

“The last thing they want to even know is that maybe those vaccines caused injury, could have caused death,” Johnson said.

Government ‘not even asking the question’

Johnson criticized the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the overreliance on vaccines and the dismissal of early treatment options.

“All the things we knew were just thrown out because our entire response was focused on Operation Warp Speed and the development of a vaccine,” he said.

He said he was concerned about the lies and deceptions surrounding the mRNA vaccines, such as the claim that they would stay in the arm and not spread throughout the body. He cited a Japanese study that found Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine components in various organs, including the ovaries and kidneys.

“We’ve gone vaccine crazy in this country for one primary reason: Drug manufacturers have no liability for any problems with the vaccine,” he said, comparing “over 70 doses” currently on the childhood vaccine schedule to “about three vaccines” he received growing up.

Johnson emphasized the importance of natural immunity and asked why health authorities dismissed its power during the pandemic in favor of the vaccine.

“What is going to be better — your natural immunity … [from] actually having had the virus or … [from] responding to a small part of that virus?” he asked.

Holland expressed her shock at the scale of injuries and harms perpetrated during the pandemic and questioned how these realities could be ignored.

Johnson agreed. “Our federal health agencies — what are they doing to address that? They’re not even asking the question.”

Federal government ‘completely out of control’ on censorship

Johnson shared his personal experience of being censored by YouTube and other platforms. He praised his colleague, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry for their lawsuit against the Biden administration and its role in revealing the government’s role in censorship.

“It has exposed so much,” Johnson said. But it’s “important for people to understand we’re not even scratching the surface. … Our federal government is completely out of control.”

The senator said, “We need to get to the bottom” of the influence of a “scientific and technological elite” group on the government and the lives of Americans.

Holland brought up the issue of liability protection for pharmaceutical companies and asked about Johnson’s bill, S.444, which would require any international agreement with the World Health Organization to be brought before the Senate for advice and consent.

Johnson explained that the bill faced partisan opposition, with Democrats voting against it and Republicans supporting it.

Holland asked about Johnson’s Democrat colleagues and their responses to issues he has been raising. “Do they just say, ‘I have to go along, it’s my party’?”

Johnson said that most people in both parties regard him the way the media has portrayed both him and CHD. “We’re wacko,” he said. Except for a few Republicans who are willing to listen to him, “I’m roadkill to them,” he said.

Big government is ‘antithetical … toward free speech’

Holland raised concerns about the erosion of First Amendment rights, asking Johnson if his colleagues still believe in the importance of free speech for a functioning democracy.

Johnson responded that while his colleagues may say they support the First Amendment, they don’t fully understand the implications of the expanding government they continue to vote for.

“They’re not really contemplating all this government they’re voting for, all this spending [and] how antithetical it is toward free speech,” he said. “They’re not understanding the downside of big government.”

The senator emphasized that the problem lies in the “massive federal government that has gone so far outside the constraints of the Constitution,” and is “doing things that our founding fathers never contemplated the federal government would ever do.”

He said the federal government is failing in its primary duties, such as securing the border. Instead, he said, it’s getting involved in foreign entanglements without learning from past mistakes.

“We don’t, in retrospect … [ask], ‘What did that foreign entanglement result in?” he said, citing the examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine.

 https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/mary-holland-ron-johnson-covid-censorship-government-weaponization/