Republican Dismisses Vaccine on Fox News, Praises It on CNN in Breathtaking Flip Flop

FoxNews/Screencap

Politicians are often accused of speaking out of both sides of their mouth, but Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) took it to a new level on Sunday. In an interview with Fox News, Mace said that shrugged off the need to get vaccinated, claiming, falsely, that “natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection. In an interview with CNN later in the day, Mace touted herself as a “proponent of vaccination.”

“One thing the CDC and no policy maker at the federal level has done so far is take into account what natural immunity has done,” Mace said on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures. “That may be what we’re seeing in Florida today. In some studies that I have read, natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future Covid infection than vaccination. We need to take all of the science into account and not selectively choosing what science to follow when we are making policy decisions.”

The Centers for Disease Control has very much taken into account what natural immunity has done. The CDC released a study last month finding that unvaccinated people who had a prior Covid infection were 5.5 times more likely to test positive for the virus than vaccinated individuals who never had Covid. Earlier CDC studies back up these results. One prior study discovered that less than two-thirds of adults with a prior Covid infection developed any antibodies against the virus, compared to 100 percent of individuals who developed antibodies after vaccination. A separate study found that natural immunity can decrease over time, especially for those who did not mount a strong initial immune response to the virus.

Shortly after touting natural immunity over the vaccine on Fox News, Mace skipped over to CNN where she tried to burnish her bona fides as a vaccine proponent. “I’ve been a proponent of vaccinations and wearing masks when you need to,” she said. “When we had the Delta variant raging in South Carolina, I wrote an op-ed to my community, and I worked with our state Department of Health.”

Mace’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone.

Mace is trying to play both sides as she faces stiff competition to retain her seat next year. As someone who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, she ran afoul of the former president’s supporters recently with her vote to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt for his refusal to comply with a Jan. 6 select committee subpoena. Mace also said the day after the Jan. 6 attack that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out yesterday.”  She quickly switched back to supporting him after his second impeachment and encouraged the GOP to “stop fighting with each other in public.”

It hasn’t been enough. Trump in a statement earlier this month called for “good and SMART America First Republican Patriots” to run against a list of Republicans he wants booted from office. Mace, who now has three primary challengers, was one of them.

Mace, who already has three other primary challengers, is included on his list.