DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP, OH– The COVID-19 vaccine mandates are the "worst thing that has ever happened in America," Republican Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told a crowd in a suburban hotel just north of Cincinnati.
About 200 people greeted "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance and his new ally Greene on Sunday.
The rally was heavy in praise for former President Donald Trump and criticism for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Greene, an ardent Trump supporter, endorsed Vance a week earlier in the crowded Republican primary to replace Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring.
"I’m unvaccinated, and am as open and free spirited as...," Greene said as she was cut off with applause from the crowd at the Marriott Cincinnati Northeast.
"We were the deplorables, and now we’re second-class citizens and we’re not vaccinated."
When asked by The Enquirer after the rally, Vance said he was vaccinated but doesn't plan to get boosted.
Vance also railed against Fauci calling him "a ridiculous tyrant."
The rally and Greene's endorsement comes as the Republican Senate candidates compete for Trump's endorsement.
Greene said she talks to Trump regularly, including on the way to the Vance rally. She said Trump told her to say hi to Vance. Trump has not endorsed in the race.
"I’ll keep talking to him cause he’s my favorite president all the time," Greene said. "I talked to him on the way here."
Vance has walked back his earlier opposition to Trump he voiced in 2016, when he called him "noxious" in an NPR interview. He also said in 2016 Trump "makes people I care about afraid."
He has since courted Trump at Mar-a-Lago, attended his rallies, and voiced support for him in interviews.
At Sunday's rally, he addressed his earlier criticism.
"You know what? Facts change," Vance said. "I saw the corruption that exists in this country. I saw Donald Trump as the only person in either party fighting against it, and I’ve been a huge supporter of Trump for the past several years."
The rally drew controversy. The campaign moved it from Loveland to just outside Mason after the Loveland venue received messages from activists wanting to stop it.
Greene has attracted controversy in the year since she took office.
The U.S. House removed Greene from her committee assignments in February 2021 for incendiary and conspiratorial social media posts, including support for the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.
Twitter in January permanently blocked Greene for repeated violation of the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy.
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