Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was reportedly booed by a Republican audience after he told them to consider getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
The heckling in Summerville started after the Republican senator told holdouts to consider getting the shots, according to The Daily Beast.
“Well, I’m glad I got it. Ninety-two percent of people in hospitals in South Carolina are unvaccinated,” he said Saturday, prompting the crowd to shout “False!” and “Not true!”
Mr. Graham, 66, assured the crowd that he did not support mandating the shots, The Daily Beast reported.
But the audience turned on him when, speaking to a civilian employee of the Navy, he noted that many people got vaccinated for other diseases.
“How many of you have taken measles shots?” Mr. Graham said, prompting more boos and shouts of, “It’s not the same!”
Republicans like Mr. Graham have generally spoken in support of the health benefit from COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed swiftly under former President Trump and largely administered under the Biden administration.
Mr. Graham’s experience reflects polling that shows conservatives are among the most skeptical of the shots.
Holdouts often cite the “newness” of the vaccines, which use messenger-RNA to teach the body to recognize fight the virus. Some question whether there might be long-range side effects that society doesn’t know about yet.
