Six years ago, Meghan McCain called Anthony Fauci a genius.
Last week, she called for his arrest.
In April 2020, when Republicans were questioning whether Fauci was a political puppet, McCain defended him publicly. "Dr. Fauci is a genius who has helped this country through the AIDS epidemic, Ebola, and COVID, just to name a few," she wrote on X. "The implication he's some kind of bobblehead, puppet is beyond insulting to him and his career."
She spent part of 2021 telling her audience that pregnant women should get vaccinated. She promoted the vaccines. She pushed back on skeptics.
McCain had two miscarriages in the years that followed — one in 2022, one in 2024.
Last week, she read Anthony Fauci's private text messages.
"PUT FAUCI IN JAIL!!!!" she wrote on X. "I am a woman who was pregnant and had a miscarriage during Covid."
She had more to say: "This is not hyperbole — handcuff, perp walk and put Fauci in a jail cell for the rest of his life." Here is what she read.
In January 2021 — as the COVID vaccine was being rolled out and pregnant women across the country were being actively encouraged to get vaccinated — Fauci sent a text message to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and future Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
He had a concern.
"Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose," Fauci wrote, "this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester."
Walensky and Murthy agreed it was a good point.Then all three of them went silent.
"It really is pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated," Fauci said publicly — on television, in press briefings, in interview after interview. Nowhere in those appearances did he mention the concern he had just flagged in writing to the two officials helping run American public health policy.
The texts sat on Fauci's government phone for years — one of over 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails recovered from his device. Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul released them on August 10, 2026.
She has company.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman went public with a number: seven. His wife suffered seven miscarriages during the COVID vaccination period. He is demanding a full accounting of what public health officials knew, when they knew it, and what they chose not to say.
Fauci's defenders will invoke the word "theoretically." The text flagged an unconfirmed question, they'll say — a theoretical association, not established fact. Fine. He flagged it to the CDC director and the incoming Surgeon General. He chose not to flag it to pregnant women.
The people running American public health policy in 2021 told pregnant women the vaccine was safe. In private, they were discussing whether it might not be. One of those conversations was on television. The other sat on a government phone for five years.
Someone decided which one you'd hear about.