‘Patently Absurd’: Rep. Chip Roy Blasts Democrats For Wanting To Target Text Messages For COVID-19 Misinformation

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) on Monday blasted Democrats who want to police private text messages, following a report that Biden allies want to target SMS carriers in their quest to dispel misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Roy appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in part to address a Monday report from Politico that claimed the Biden administration is “casting conservative opponents of its Covid-19 vaccine campaign as dangerous and extreme” and plans to work with SMS carriers to suppress anti-vaccine sentiment even in private texts.

As Carlson said, per Fox News:

On Monday, Politico reported plans from the Biden administration to battle misinformation in regards to the COVID-19 vaccine. 

“The White House has decided to hit back harder on misinformation and scare tactics after Republican lawmakers and conservative activists pledged to fight the administration’s stated plans to go ‘door-to-door’ to increase vaccination rates,” Politico wrote. “The pushback will include directly calling out social media platforms and conservative news shows that promote such tactics.”

The article continues how pro-Biden groups and the Democratic National Committee will work with SMS carriers to “dispel misinformation” in peoples’ private text messages. 

“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” Politico reports. 

“This whole issue of the vaccine hits very close to home for me,” Roy told Carlson. “My father, in 1949 when he was seven years old, he was diagnosed with polio. And my grandmother was nursing my grandfather, who was sick with cancer — he died that fall — and then raised my dad as a single mom, nursed him to health. And he lived his whole life ravaged by polio.”

“I’m grateful to have a vaccine for me, vaccines for my sons and my daughter,” Roy told Fox News. “I believe in vaccines, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow Democrats … come in and start calling you an anti-vax quack or call me an anti-vaxxer because I dare to believe that it is our duty as Americans, our patriotic duty, to make decisions for ourselves, not have Democrats looking at our text messages, not having them try to shame the American people into taking a vaccine.”

Roy also called the alleged DNC text claims “patently absurd.”

After the Politico report was published, Lucas Acosta, a spokesperson for the DNC, told the Associated Press that DNC does not have the ability to access or read the texts of other private people. More from the Associated Press:

Acosta explained to The Associated Press that the DNC isn’t infiltrating personal texts, nor is it working with mobile phone carriers like Verizon or T-Mobile to dispel misinformation.

Instead, Acosta said, the DNC is simply notifying SMS aggregator companies, like Twilio and Bandwidth, when it believes a political mass text is fraudulent or violates the company’s messaging policies.

“When the DNC’s counter disinformation program receives complaints or reports of fraudulent broadcast SMSs that we believe violate the text aggregators’ terms of service, we notify the broadcast text platform to help combat this troubling trend,” Acosta said. “The only texts reviewed are those distributed en masse to American citizens through broadcast text platforms and reported to the DNC.”

WATCH:

“It is our duty as Americans, our patriotic duty, to make decisions for ourselves- not have democrats looking at our text messages, not having them shame the American people into taking a vaccine.”

More from Rep. Roy on the Democrats’ extreme vaccine push with @TuckerCarlson: pic.twitter.com/qAMgdSXHnx

— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) July 13, 2021

Roy spoke out last week against the Biden administration for aggressively pushing COVID-19 vaccines, prompting a White House official to reportedly scoff at his concerns. As The Daily Wire reported:

A White House official reportedly dismissed concerns Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) made this week regarding the Biden administration’s recent move to go door-to-door pushing the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I’m just sick and God-darn tired of the Left, and this government, dictating to me, frankly, anything at all,” Roy told RealClearPolitics White House reporter Philip Wegmann in an interview. “Back the F off. That’s my message to the White House.”

When Wegmann reached out to a White House official to ask if they had a response to Roy, the official texted, “lol no.”

This article has been updated to include comment from the DNC. 

Related: Fauci And D.C. Mayor Bowser Heckled As They Go Door-To-Door Pushing Vaccines