ROCHESTER, Minn. — A U.S. representative for Wisconsin is calling to “remove every single penny” of Mayo Clinic’s federal funding in response to an alleged employee’s comments about the fatal shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
On Sunday Robby Starbuck, another conservative social media personality, made a post on the social media site X with three images: two screenshots of X posts by the same user, followed by a screenshot of that individual’s apparent LinkedIn profile, which appears to list Mayo Clinic as an employer.
The X account attributed to Collins has since been set to private, and Mayo Clinic no longer appears on his LinkedIn account.
One of the posts calls Kirk a “divisive, white, racist, sexist, homophobe, anti-Semite bigot,” while the other post reads “best actress in a faux Christian role” in a reply to another post that features a video of Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow and the new CEO of Turning Point USA, the conservative organization her husband founded.
“Their worker mocked Charlie Kirk and his widow Erika Kirk,” Starbuck wrote. “He must be fired if Mayo Clinic has actual values.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden — a Republican who represents Wisconsin’s 3rd District, which borders Southeast Minnesota — reposted Starbuck’s X post, saying, “We will be working to remove every single penny of federal funding from the Mayo Clinic unless this is resolved.”
The Post Bulletin could not independently verify if the X user whose posts appear in Starbuck’s screenshots is a current or former Mayo Clinic employee. Mayo Clinic did not respond to the Post Bulletin’s request for comment.
Van Orden made a similar pledge to withhold federal funding from the City of Eau Claire following two city council members’ social media posts about Kirk, WXOW reported.
One day after the Mayo Clinic post, Van Orden introduced a short bill that would prohibit federal funding from being dispersed to “any entity that employ individuals who condone and celebrate political violence and domestic terrorism.”
Van Orden spoke about Mayo Clinic again during a Sept. 19, appearance on the Mid-Atlantic-based John Fredericks Radio Show, as first reported by Heartland Signal.
A caller asked about Van Orden’s posts: “Isn’t that going to hurt and potentially kill a lot of people if we take away medical services from organizations that you don’t like by cutting off funding?”
In response, Van Orden asked the caller if federal dollars should be sent to “organizations that are inciting violence.”
“You cannot tell me,” Van Orden continued, “that these people who are employing folks, that are receiving billions of federal dollars — you cannot say that the stuff, the vile things that they’re saying are not specifically geared towards intimidating or coercing a civilian population or influencing a government.”
Van Orden’s district includes several Mayo Clinic Health System locations, including hospitals in La Crosse and Eau Claire.
Mayo Clinic receives a significant amount of federal funding, namely through National Institutes of Health research grants. As of Sept. 5, the health system has 434 active awards worth around $302 million. It is the second-largest NIH funding recipient in Minnesota, after the University of Minnesota.
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