(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Like the lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates ordered by disgraced former COVID czar Anthony Fauci during the pandemic, the reckoning against Fauci himself is now having major reverse-ripple effects — including vindication for NBA star Kyrie Irving.
Following a Senate hearing last Wednesday in which Fauci invoked Fifth Amendment protections 111 times to avoid his subpoenaed testimony, ESPN host Stephen A. Smith said Irving deserved an apology.
Stephen A. Smith publicly APOLOGIZES to Kyrie Irving after calling him "selfish" for refusing the COVID jab.
"Hindsight-wise, it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish. It made him BRAVE."
"I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday, and the person I thought about most was… pic.twitter.com/rBgTz24Dka
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 31, 2026
“I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday, and the person I thought about most was Kyrie Irving,” Smith said Thursday on his SiriusXM show.
Going into the 2021-22 season, Irving — who was a point guard with the Brooklyn Nets at the time — was considered to be one of the league’s top 20 overall players.
But a series of COVID vaccine mandates implemented by then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo saw his fortunes drastically reversed.
Irving stood his ground in refusing to take the vaccine, even after President Joe Biden scapegoated skeptics by spuriously declaring it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Irving’s resistance helped give strength to others who were wavering between reluctance to submit to the gene-altering, experimental serums and the social pressures to do so, in some cases threatening their jobs and friendships.
However, the decision severely limited Irving’s playing time and made him something of a league pariah.
“New York City’s mandate made him ineligible for home games, and he linked his stance to people losing jobs over vaccine mandates,” Smith recalled.
“In my opinion, particularly hindsight-wise, it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish,” Smith added. “It made him brave. His willingness to stand up and say, ‘Nah, I’m not doing that.’”
In reaction to a viral clip of Smith calling for a Irving to be vindicated, other public figures chimed in, such as rapper Nikki Minaj, who offered her own jab at Smith for finally seeing the light.
“Is that a pair of balls I see?” she wrote.
Is that a pair of balls I see? https://t.co/xT8qWac02T
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) July 31, 2026
Vernon Jones, a red-pilled ex-Democrat now running to be Georgia’s secretary of state, called for Irving to be reimbursed for his lost earnings.
“[T]he city of New York mandated he take the Covid jab in order to play home games,” Jones wrote. “When he refused, his pay was docked roughly $380,000 per game — more than $11 million that season.”
The City of New York @nycgov, the Brooklyn Nets @BrooklynNets , the @NBA, the National Players Association @TheNBPA and #DrFauci should reimburse @KyrieIrving every single dollar of his earnings stripped from for refusing to take the Covid #JAB! Why? Because the city of New York… https://t.co/udSQaCGRQB
— Vernon Jones (@VernonForGA) July 31, 2026
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a close ally of President Donald Trump, said Irving should receive the nation’s highest civilian award for his courage in taking a stand against medical tyranny.
“I am calling on President Trump to give Kyrie Irving the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his immense act of bravery during one of the darkest times in modern history,” she wrote.
I am calling on President Trump to give Kyrie Irving the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his immense act of bravery during one of the darkest times in modern history. https://t.co/aGIs0oB6sp
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) July 31, 2026
Ahead of Fauci’s hearing, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released more than 1,100 pages from a diary of Fauci’s, discovered on the Health and Human Services Department servers, showing not only the then-NIAID director’s obsession with fame and media coverage, but also the gaping inconsistencies between his public and private opinions.
In an Aug. 13, 2022, entry, Fauci recounted a debate with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the benefit of the vaccines — or lack thereof — since they “were not effective at all in preventing infection and transmission.”
Fauci and his team argued to tone down the language and say instead that the vaccines had “modest and waning efficacy.”
However, both anecdotally and in multiple scientific studies, the risk of potential vaccine injuries, such as myocarditis or stroke, has proven to be greater for healthy individuals without preexisting comorbidities or risk factors than the threat of the virus itself.
Indeed, the diary included a since-redacted revelation that Fauci himself suffered a blood clot in his lungs in June 2021, about six months after he received his first dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine.
🚨NEW: Rand Paul’s Fauci Diary website has quietly REDACTED the June 2021 entry where Fauci describes suffering a pulmonary infarction (lung blood clot).
Side-by-side:
Original → Full account of the CT scan, initial cancer scare, confirmation of a “definite” pulmonary infarct… pic.twitter.com/qEiMwmIxER
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) July 28, 2026
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
