George W. Bush Institute Senior Fellow Deborah Birx speaks at the 2023 Women’s Forum U.S.A. hosted by Vital Voices and the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society at Vital Voices Headquarters on March 29, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Paul Morigi / Getty Images)
By Samuel Short August 3, 2026 at 4:51pm
Public officials faced pressure from “experts” to upend the lives of everyday Americans in the name of combating COVID. But were these measures really justifiable?
Republican Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, Glenn Jacobs — popularly known for his work with World Wrestling Entertainment as Kane — recalled an exchange with a certain doctor who gave no indication that lockdown measures were proven to be effective.
Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, which featured former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, proved that lockdown measures enacted during COVID are still an open wound.
Fauci, a power-hungry braggart who loved the spotlight, was reduced to a sheepish old man, opting to invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions.
He ruined lives in the name of “science,” but now has nothing to say.
Another “expert” in the spotlight is Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force during President Donald Trump’s final year of his first term.
On Saturday, Jacobs remembered an exchange he had with Birx that proved anti-COVID policies were more of a stunt than a safety measure.
At the end of the day, do you think Birx was just as bad as Fauci?
Replying to a post on social media platform X from the Young Americans for Liberty, Jacobs clarified statements he had previously made to the group, branding the response to the virus a “marketing campaign.”
Jacobs wrote, “Here’s the story: Deborah Birx came to Knoxville to tell us what to do. She said to close restaurants and bars.
“When someone said the data didn’t show the virus spread in restaurants and bars, she replied, ‘That’s true, but we have to show people that this is serious.’”
Here’s the story:
Deborah Birx came to Knoxville to tell us what to do. She said to close restaurants and bars. When someone said the data didn’t show the virus spread in restaurants and bars, she replied, “that’s true, but we have to show people that this is serious.” https://t.co/10LjWusEKT— Glenn Jacobs (@GlennJacobsTN) August 1, 2026
Unsurprisingly, with exchanges like the one Jacobs described above in mind, millions of Americans won’t be trusting health officials, “experts,” or anyone claiming to speak on behalf of science in the near future.
These people insisted we wear masks. In fact, they demanded it.
But a January 2023 study entitled “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses” found that “wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks.”
They demanded we social distance, but Fauci, when questioned by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on his measure of keeping people 6 feet apart stated, “It sort of just appeared.”
“I don’t recall, like, a discussion of whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever.”
Committee Staff Director Mitch Benzine asked, “Did you see any studies that supported 6 feet?” Fauci replied, “I was not aware of studies that — in fact, that would be a very difficult study to do,” per a report from PolitiFact.
The American people endured tyranny.
We were the victims of power-hungry bureaucrats who fawned over themselves as they ruled with an iron fist.
What they did was evil.
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