Wrestling Legend-Turned-Mayor Recalls Moment He Knew COVID Experts Were Doing PR, Not Science

CINCINNATI — A wrestling legend remembers the moment one COVID-19 public health official went from hero to heel.

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, also known as former WWE star “Kane,” told the audience during a speech Thursday at the 2026 Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) National Convention that the government’s response to the COVID pandemic was actually a “marketing campaign” that “had very little to do with public health.”

“I think finally people have had enough and [there was] really public pushback,” Jacobs continued.

Jacobs recalled a meeting when former coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Dr. Deborah Birx came to Tennessee to impart her advice about the pandemic in September 2020. At the time, Dr. Anthony Fauci “was the face of COVID,” but Birx “was actually the architect of [the COVID-19] policies,” Jacobs said.

“She was the one actually doing stuff behind the scenes,” he added.

Jacobs recalled that the “local media [was] like, ‘Oh, my gosh, things are so bad here and the mayor wants every one to die so badly that they had to send Deborah Birx in to straighten things out.'”

The meeting included several doctors seeking answers for how to respond to the pandemic.

”An MD and PhD would be asking Dr. Birx, ‘What should we do, Dr. Birx?’ … And she says, ‘well, you need to close your restaurants and bars.’ 
[And] to their credit, one of the MDs, or PhDs, speaks up … They said ‘the data shows that it doesn’t spread at restaurants and bars.’ And Deborah replies, ‘That’s true. But we have to show people how serious this is.’”

“That’s when it was driven home to me that this is a public relations, marketing campaign, and this had very little to do with public health,” Jacobs explained.

Jacobs has previously been an outspoken critic of COVID-era mask and vaccine mandates.

“During COVID, I fought to keep businesses and schools open,” Jacobs wrote in a Wednesday X post. “I fought against mask and vax mandates and stupid, tyrannical restrictions. The whole time I kept hearing, ‘But Dr. Fauci says. But Dr. Fauci says. But Dr. Fauci says.’ At least that guy has finally shut up.”

Fauci declined to answer multiple basic questions during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. He pleaded the 5th Amendment a total of 111 times, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said in a Wednesday social media post.