In interview, Sen. Johnson says it ‘may be true’ that COVID vaccines cause AIDS

In a video interview published on the right-wing social media platform Rumble, Sen. Ron Johnson said it “may be true” that vaccines against COVID-19 cause AIDS. 

Johnson was being interviewed by anti-vaccine lawyer Todd Callender, who alleged that the shots induce AIDS and that the FDA knew so when the vaccines were approved for emergency use. 

“The way to approach this is from a criminal point of view because that’s what has happened. And until we start holding people accountable, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci number one, you’re going to see people still falling out, still getting sick,” Calendar said. “You’ve got more than a hundred doctors here, all of whom will tell you that these shots caused vaccine-induced AIDS. they purposefully gave people AIDS. They knew this.”

Johnson responded that it’s possible the allegations are true, but that anti-vaccine activists need to wait for public opinion to be on their side before criminally charging health officials. 

“Let me challenge you there, that’s way down the road,” Johnson said. “You’ve gotta do one step at a time. Everything you say may be true, but right now the public views the vaccines as largely safe and effective, that vaccine injuries are rare and mild. That’s the narrative, that’s what the vast majority of the public accepts. So until we get a larger percentage of the population with their eyes open to ‘woah, these vaccine injuries are real, why?’ You’ve got to do it step by step, you can’t leap to crimes against humanity, you can’t leap to another Nuremberg trial.” 

The claim that the COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS is false. 

This is not the first time Johnson, who is up for re-election this fall, has spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19 or connected the pandemic to AIDS. In December, on world AIDS day, Johnson said in an appearance on Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade’s radio show that Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “overhyped” the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. 

“He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the entire population when it couldn’t,” Johnson said. 

Johnson has been a staunch advocate for the use of the antiparasitic veterinary drug Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, which large studies have proved is ineffective at treating the virus. He also suggested in a town hall that gargling mouthwash could be an effective treatment.