Rep. Madison Cawthorne (R-North Carolina). Courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images
Rep. Madison Cawthorn said President Joe Biden’s call to offer COVID-19 vaccines door-to-door could lead to the government taking people’s guns and bibles.
Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, was speaking Friday during an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference event in Dallas, Texas, taking place this weekend. He was speaking with Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative media outlet.
“And now they’re sort of talking about going door-to-door to be able to take vaccines to the people. The thing about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing,” Cawthorn said, in reference to Biden’s latest community-based vaccine push.
“Think about what those mechanisms could be used for. They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could go door-to-door to take your bibles,” Cawthorn said.
See video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1413595082238873607
Biden said Tuesday that offering vaccines door-to-door could help increase vaccination rates as the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly in several US states. The US also missed the White House’s goal of inoculating 70% of adults by July 4th. As of Friday, nearly 59% of adults were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
Biden’s remarks on Tuesday drew immediate pushback from some conservatives, including Rep. Lauren Boebert, who called the door-to-door vaccinators “needle Nazis.” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also made a Nazi reference, calling the vaccinators “medical brown shirts,” a reference to Adolf Hitler’s militia and paramilitary force.
The White House hit back at the criticism, with Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying on Friday: “The failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that.”
