Ron Johnson says he decided to seek reelection to advocate for the ‘vaccine injured’

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) says one of the main reasons he ran for reelection in 2022 was to advocate for “vaccine injuries,” arguing that health defects from vaccines are “not all that rare.”

“One of the main reasons I ran again is nobody else is advocating for the vaccine injury,” Johnson said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “These vaccine injuries are real. They’re serious. They’re not all that rare.”

Johnson narrowly defeated Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes in the 2022 midterm elections, staving off the underdog by just over 25,000 votes. In the run up to the election, Johnson repeated now-debunked claims about the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Wisconsin Republican also claimed in a radio interview in May 2021 that COVID vaccines had been responsible for thousands of deaths, saying “we’re over 3,000 deaths after within 30 days of taking the vaccine” and citing numbers from the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

The system is not an officially vetted report, allowing anyone to submit claims. But federal health officials have found no link between the vaccine and deaths.

Johnson’s win in the Senate came amid a losing effort by Republicans to retake the chamber in 2022. With Democrats in the majority, they have power over committees, something Johnson acknowledged hampers his ability to investigate the issue.

“Unfortunately, I’m not chairman of a committee where I have subpoena power, so it’s more difficult for me to compel testimony,” Johnson said.

But Johnson said Thursday that vaccine injuries are something that he would be focusing on in the Senate, saying he can “uncover and expose the truth.”

“That’s what I’m going to be focusing on because I think I can get a fair amount of information, uncover and expose the truth, at least with the results to vaccine injuries,” he said.