Republicans for Some Reason Are Back to Talking About Ivermectin

While Republican leadership attempts to pin millions of Covid-19 deaths on Dr. Anthony Fauci, some party members are zeroing in on his dismissal of their alternative “cures” to the virus.Peter Navarro, who is currently serving as a senior counselor to President Donald Trump, whined to C-Span Wednesday that Fauci had interrupted his hydroxychloroquine business at the height of the pandemic.“I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses … that I was trying to distribute to hospitals, and he got the FDA to stop me from doing that,” Navarro said. “Thousands of people could be here in this country right now alive if I had been able to distribute that, take that to the bank, that’s what the science says.”Extensive clinical trials have repeatedly debunked that hydroxychloroquine—an antimalarial drug predominantly used to treat lupus—could have been an effective treatment for Covid-19. The FDA revoked the drug’s emergency use authorization during Trump’s first term after emerging data made clear that it did not treat or prevent Covid-19 but instead had the potential to create dangerous heart palpitations, cause liver or kidney damage, and cause serious gastrointestinal upset.But six years later, Republicans are apparently still choosing to ignore the science.In the midst of grilling a Fifth-pleading Fauci on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson insisted that ivermectin—a drug used to treat heartworm in livestock, which was touted during the pandemic as another miracle cure—“worked.”“When it comes to ivermectin … it works,” Johnson said, proceeding to wave a stack of papers while claiming that there were dozens of studies proving the efficacy of ivermectin against the coronavirus.To this day, the FDA has only approved some ivermectin tablets at specific doses for human use, though their application is limited to treating parasitic worms. The FDA page on the matter still warns against the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19, asserting that “currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective” against the virus.Furthermore, the FDA notes that taking ivermectin—or any drug dosed for an animal—can be dangerous, and that the agency has received “multiple reports” of hospitalizations after people have attempted to self-treat themselves with the drug.A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse are going door-to-door on Capitol Hill to deliver the government’s files to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.The survivors gathered for a press conference at the National Mall Wednesday to launch the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile, which will carry bound copies of all 3.5 million files to communities across the country throughout the midterm elections.As part of their launch, the survivors delivered printed copies straight to lawmakers’ offices, according to Miles Taylor, a former Trump official turned activist now involved with the bookmobile.The survivors took copies of the files to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is set to vote on advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation on Thursday.Speaking at the press conference, the survivors urged against confirming Blanche, who only recently met with survivors after months of dodging victims and their demands for the Department of Justice to keep investigating. That meeting did not go well.“A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote against justice,” Elizabeth Stein, an Epstein survivor and anti–human trafficking educator, said Wednesday.Blanche previously tried to downplay the Epstein files’ thousands of redaction errors that exposed the names of survivors while concealing the identities of alleged perpetrators.Blanche’s confirmation is already in jeopardy at the hands of his own party. Two Republican lawmakers are refusing to approve Blanche unless he puts in writing that Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is actually dead. The federal government’s investigation into former FBI Director James Comey has taken some extremely bizarre steps. Comey was charged with allegedly threatening violence against President Donald Trump in April with an Instagram post of numbers spelling out “86 47” in seashells. On Tuesday, Comey filed a motion to dismiss the case, and in that court filing, his lawyers listed some drastic steps taken by the authorities. The Department of Justice spoke to former mafia boss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano in an attempt to prove that the “86” in Comey’s post was an allusion to murder. But Gravano’s interview didn’t help their case, as he pointed out that real organized crime figures would think using the term was too obvious. Gravano also suggested the FBI should contact former federal prosecutor and judge John Gleeson for his opinion on the term, only for Gleeson to say, “The claim that ‘86’ is mafia jargon for ‘kill’ is preposterous.” Gleeson, who prosecuted notable organized crime cases, said that in thousands of hours of debriefings and conversations with mobsters, he had never heard the term used that way. Federal agents also used emergency cell phone tracking, which doesn’t require a warrant, to monitor Comey’s location while he was driving from North Carolina to Virginia shortly after he made the post. That location tracking is only supposed to be used in extreme situations, such as an “imminent threat to life or limb.” No such emergency existed, and one Secret Service agent later said in a memo that “we did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger and legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone.”Trump fired Comey in 2017 over the federal investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election, and has targeted the former FBI director in his second term as president. This case against Comey has fallen apart several times already, and has only recently been revived by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. It seems destined to fail yet again. Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, a dramatic about-face for someone who has been an unflinching supporter of the president for years. Jones based his demands on Trump’s war on Iran, which many on the MAGA right were opposed to from the start, viewing it as yet another endless foreign war—a pattern Trump ran on ending. “The big issue is how to stop Trump. And we have to have Congress go for the war powers. They’ve tried three times to vote on war powers—they’re supposed to authorize a war. This is a war; they’re getting the draft ready. If this isn’t a war, nothing’s a war. I mean, this is absolutely out of control,” Jones said in a video posted on Tuesday afternoon. “And so I’m calling for it right now: Twenty-Fifth Amendment, impeachment, whatever needs to happen to get this front and center, to get control of our country.”Jones went on to allege that Trump is preparing for a boots-on-the-ground invasion of Iran, a line in the sand for many in the “America First” wing of MAGA. “They want us in a total war so they can censor and take our freedoms, nationalize everything, and push us aside with AI—total liability, immunity, and protection. This is a disaster. We are facing tyranny, but the public’s awakening,” he continued. “We’ve got to come together and transcend left and right, and we have to say no to an expanded war that will definitely destroy the economy and kill a bunch of our troops. They’re preparing a massive ground invasion. It’s all confirmed. This is going down right now.”BREAKING: Alex Jones Calls For Impeachment Of President Trump For Attempt To Reimplement The National Draft & Launch Total Ground Invasion Of Iran!"The Big Issue Is How To Stop Trump! 25th Amendment, Impeachment, Whatever Needs To Happen To Get This Front & Center!"Americans… https://t.co/zaIGbDAfpz pic.twitter.com/Ar6bUYdq4p— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 28, 2026 While this announcement is historically uncharacteristic for Jones, the internal MAGA split on the Iran war has been brewing for some time. “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?” Jones wrote back in April after Trump warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” referring to Iran. “WAR CRIME ALERT!!—Trump on Iran: ‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. The definition of genocide is destroying an entire civilization/people! Trump literally sounds like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie. This IS NOT WHAT WE VOTED FOR!!!”A federal judge Tuesday tossed FBI Director Kash Patel’s $10 million lawsuit against a blogger who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch.”In his final order, Nevada Chief District Judge Andrew Gordon dismissed Patel’s lawsuit against Jim Stewartson, finding that he did not have “personal jurisdiction” over the internet commentator.Gordon’s order put an end to a legal saga that began long before Patel was ever made director of the FBI.In June 2023, Patel filed a complaint that Stewartson was smearing him online by calling him a “blatantly incompetent chud” and a “Kremlin asset” who plotted to “overthrow the government” on January 6, 2021.Initially, Stewartson didn’t respond to the lawsuit, which led to Patel winning a $250,000 default judgment in August 2025. Stewartson challenged the default judgment on the grounds that he had no meaningful ties to Nevada, where the case was filed, and declared that Patel was a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch” and, again, a “chud.”Stewartson celebrated the final order, which referenced his comment in a footnote. “I’d like to commend the judge for including ‘googly-eyed Kremlin bitch’ in his ruling,” Stewartson wrote on X Tuesday.“PSA: Now that my case is settled, you are free to refer to @FBIDirectorKash as a ‘chud,’ a ‘googly-eyed Kremlin bitch,’ and a ‘traitor’ without fear of legal repercussions!” he wrote in another post.Following President Donald Trump’s lead, Patel has filed six defamation lawsuits against journalists in just seven years. Patel recently filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic for reporting on his excessive drinking at work. More on how it’s going for Kash: