Psaki takes down Marjorie Taylor Greene for yet another Nazi Covid reference

‘This is about protecting people and saving lives,’ says White House press secretary amid further GOP controversy

Jen Psaki (AP)

Marjorie Taylor Greene was rebuked by White House press secretary Jen Psaki for again referencing the Nazis in an attack on Covid vaccinations.

Ms Psaki said on Wednesday that the White House did not pay attention to the GOP congresswoman’s advice on Covid, and told CNN: “We don't take any of our health and medical advice from Marjorie Taylor Greene, so I can assure everyone of that”.

“It’s up to every individual to decide whether they’re going to get vaccinated, but … this is about protecting people and saving lives,” Ms Psaki added. “That’s a role we’re going to continue to play from the federal government, use any of the tools and tactics that we think will be effective.”

It came after Ms Greene compared vaccine workers to “medical brown shirts” who were “showing up” at people’s doors. She also wrongly accused President Joe Biden of using Covid as a “political tool to control people”.

Tweeting on Tuesday afternoon, Ms Green alleged that Mr Biden was “pushing a vaccine that is NOT FDA approved” and that it “shows Covid is a political tool used to control people”, and referenced the Nazi’s paramilitary wing, the “brownshirts”.

“People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” Ms Greene added in the tweet. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment”.

The congresswoman immediately faced criticism for the tweet, including that from the White House press secretary.

Mr Biden, on Tuesday, had called for the US’s vaccination campaign to “go community-by-community, neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood, and oft times door-to-door – literally knocking on doors – to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus”.

It was not clear what Ms Greene was referring to with her remarks on FDA approval for Covid vaccines issued in the US, with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson approved by the regulator.

The congresswoman was forced to apology only last month for comparing rules on Covid face coverings to Star of David badges that Jewish people were forced to wear in Nazi-occupied Europe, amid other Nazi-Covid comparisons.

That, in turn, followed a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.

The Independent has reached out to Ms Greene for comment.