Maxine Waters to Jim Jordan at Fauci Hearing: 'Shut Your Mouth'

An exchange between arch-conservative Congressman Jim Jordan and Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 expert, devolved into rancor during a House hearing on Thursday.

The hearing on the nation's COVID response was hijacked by Trump ally Jordan, who presented mitigation efforts like masking and social distancing as assaults on Americans' "liberties." Jordan demanded to know when the federal government would lift such prevention efforts, demanding to receive specific numbers from Fauci. The infectious disease expert insisted the country's daily COVID case count was still too high to pull back on masking and distancing.

"We had 15 days of 'slow the spread' turn into one year of lost liberty," Jordan said. "What metrics, what measures, what has to happen before Americans get more freedoms back?"

"You're indicating liberty and freedom. I look at it as a public health measure to prevent people from dying and going to the hospital," Fauci responded. "This will end, for sure, when we get the level of infection very low. It is now at such a high level, there is a threat again of major surges."

Fauci later said the country is experiencing about 60,000 daily cases and restrictions couldn't be dropped until under 10,000 cases were being tallied.

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Throughout the exchange, Jordan continuously spoke over Fauci and committee chairman Jim Clyburn and then went over his alotted time, talking over a Democratic congresswoman who was next in line for a question. Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- not shy in standing up to the bullying tactics of Republicans like Jordan -- stepped in.

"You need to respect the chair and shut your mouth," she told Jordan.

Jordan maintained his aggression thoughout the hearing. Finally, Fauci told him, "You're making this a personal thing and it isn't." See both exchanges below.