WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) today spoke about his oversight efforts into security preparations ahead of the Electoral College vote count, and he leveled critiques of the country’s response to Covid-19. Excerpts from the interview are below, and video can be found here.

On Capitol security

“I’ve sent four letters, to the two former sergeants at arms of the House and Senate, and now the acting sergeants at arms of the House and the Senate. I have gotten absolutely no response. I actually appreciate what the former Chief of Police of Capitol Police Steven Sund sent in the letter, and he lays out the diligence that he undertook to provide security around the Capitol. It seems like he took pretty reasonable precautions. He's obviously being one of the scapegoats here, but Senator Graham and I have called for a completely independent investigation to find out exactly what happened.”

“Listen, the Capitol is the people's house. It shouldn't be barricaded. Unless there's some real threats that I'm not aware of, that they are not telling us about, I think we ought to take that fencing down and return to as normal of a position as possible. I think the fencing is remaining to send signal, a narrative, that 74 million Americans that voted for President Trump are dangerous to our democracy — ‘They’re all insurrectionists’ — and that's simply not the case.”

“I'm for transparency, and right now there's very little transparency other than Steven Sund's letter to Speaker Pelosi, which I truly appreciate. I wish the former sergeants of arms and current sergeants at arms would also lay out what they did, what they're aware of. I wish other people would come forward. The American public deserves to know what happened. We need this information and we need it now.”

On the Covid-19 response

“I get so tired of Democrats preaching to Republicans and conservatives that we have to follow the science, but they only follow the science when it supports their policy prescriptions. The science says that children are not generally carriers. The seasonal flu is much more dangerous to children than Covid is. So why not open up the schools?”

“From my standpoint, I think the way we’ve approached Covid in general is insane. We should have isolated the sick, we should have protected the vulnerable, and the rest of us should have carried on as safely as possible. But that’s not what’s happened. By the way, we also should have focused on early treatment, and the fact is that our health agencies have not only not focused on it but vilified anybody that had courage and compassion to treat patients. Now you have YouTube censoring Senate testimony of Dr. Kory talking about ivermectin, which could be a life-saving, generic, easily used and cheap drug, it is a further travesty of the bias in social media.”

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