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Ron Johnson: “You simply can't shut down economies. Again, that's back in…”

Featuring: Ron Johnson, Republican | U.S. Senate, Wisconsin

The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1

Published March 4, 2026 | Video Starts at 11:33

We don't have to shut down our economy. Be careful if you're elderly, if you have certain comorbidities. But the rest of us, we need to carry on with our lives. You simply can't shut down economies. Again, that's back in May of 2020. And again, made no sense in terms of lack of treatment. I mean, for the NIH to come out and basically say there is no treatment for this. (11:33–11:38)

CLAIM

Asserts that economies should not be shut down, referencing May 2020.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Ron Johnson

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“Most of these infectious diseases, we'd pretty well conquered them before any vaccine ever hit the market.”
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“You cannot get an emergency use authorization if there's a treatment for the disease.”
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“Surgeries [at a cash-only surgical center in Oklahoma] are 10% the cost of hospital surgeries.”
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“Obamacare set the maximum insurance companies can make at 15%.”
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“We've never had a true placebo blind controlled study on any of the vaccines on the childhood schedule.”
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“Harvard did a study and pretty well revealed that less than 1% of vaccine injuries are actually reported through these surveillance systems.”
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“He [Dr. Scott] didn't realize that the MRNA biodistributes all over the body.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 03:35-24:38
“Ivermectin...was a Nobel prize winning drug. It saved I don't know how many millions from river blindness.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 06:08-09:33
“Novartis... provided, I think, 30 million tablets of hydroxychloroquine to our national stockpile.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 06:16-06:24
“Somebody made the decision, we're not going to worry about early treatment.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 06:55-07:00
“For the first eight months, the only way you could get the COVID injection, it's not a vaccine. It's literally gene therapy.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 08:50-09:02
“I've looked at various reports on that. Way safer than the COVID injections or remdesivir.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 10:02-10:08
“The FDA tanked that. I mean, there's only one explanation. Again, they're corrupt and they're doing the bidding of Pfizer and Moderna.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 10:08-10:17
“Nurses in those wards would call it run death is near because they knew it would knock out their kidneys.”
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“I ran for a third term and won a very narrow race.”
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“They certainly quoted everybody they possibly could with COVID whether you had it or not.”
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“The PCR test, I mean, it's well known. They cycled that way too many times. They were getting all kinds of false positives.”
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“Hospitals, of course, were incentivized. They got paid more because of these massive trillion dollar Covid relief bills.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 13:55-14:02
“Hospitals became killing fields [during the COVID-19 pandemic].”
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“Doctors are being crushed at the bottom of the treatment pyramid paradigm.”
The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 16:23-16:28
“Hospitals are money-making operations, whether they're nonprofit or not.”
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“Doctors that came out and testified in my hearings or my public events were destroyed by the medical profession.”
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“Every incentive in our current health care system is to increase costs.”
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“Under Obamacare, as an individual you can't choose different insurance policies. They're now prescribed by the federal government.”
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“The whole insurance industry is rigged. The Insurance own, the PBMs, the hospital associations are working with the insurers as well.”
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The First Tell: Senator Ron Johnson on What Broke the COVID Narrative | Ep 1 | Uploaded March 4, 2026 | 23:33-23:45
“The voice of the vaccine injured were never heard by the American people unless you have social media and got some of the clips.”
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“It's not true mRNA, it's modified RNA. True MRNA degrades the body very quickly.”
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“We're now finding it [modified mRNA] circulating in the body. We don't know how long it'll stay, but we already know some studies. It's been…”
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“Bobby Kennedy got in charge [of ACIP]. He got rid of all the other members of that board that had obvious conflicts of interest.”
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