By Editor,Will Potter

Copyright dailymail

A self-described ‘MAGA dentist’ brushed off backlash for saying that she would make dental treatments for liberal patients more painful as she insisted they were ‘just jokes.’

Dr. Harleen Grewal, a dentist at Skyline Smiles in Santa Clarita, California, came under fire after footage of a speech she gave at the Republican Liberty Gala in 2021 resurfaced.

She said at the Gala that she often wears a hat during her procedures that says ‘Make Your Smile Great Again’, and would gauge her patients’ reactions to the political merchandise.

‘So when they look horrified, or complain, I quietly cut back on the laughing gas, and say, ‘you got this, it’s not as bad as you think it is,’ she said in her speech.

‘I stole that from Joe Biden.’

She also remarked that she preferred running her practice during the pandemic because liberals would stay home, and wished they would have kept inside forever.

After footage of the speech circulated social media, Grewal insisted that her comments were taken out of context and were only meant to be jokes for the Republican crowd.

In a podcast interview with Voice of the Future, Grewal said she was even visited by the police after they received an anonymous complaint about her ‘jokes’, and proudly told them they ‘didn’t scare me.’

‘I’m very politically connected, and I’m a dentist, so I just made these jokes,’ she said.

The dentist said in her podcast appearance that she became political soon after opening her clinic in 2015, and decided to use it as a hub to help register her patients to vote.

‘Being a very savvy businesswoman, I just knew that following President Trump and getting involved in the Republican Party is what I wanted to do,’ she recalled.

‘It was very motivating and very encouraging.’

She said she started ballot harvesting at her clinic, but added that she would collect ballots from both Democrats and Republicans, because ‘everybody should be able to vote.’

But Grewal said that her decision to mix her dental practice work with politics led to backlash, and she was hit with several anonymous complaints that led to visits from the police.

In the first instance, Grewal said investigators were told she was running an ‘illegal ballot harvesting operation’ out of her clinic.

‘So I gave them a tour of my office and I showed them what I was doing, it was perfectly legal… but the point is they were trying to silence me,’ she said.

Grewal said that months later, she was visited by an investigator from the California Dental Board, who told her they also had an anonymous complaint that she was ‘torturing Democrats.’

Asked if she had said that, Grewal recalled: ‘I said yes, do you want me to show you a video? Because it was part of my speech at the Republican Liberty Gala.’

She said that she insisted they were ‘jokes’, and said the investigator agreed that her remarks were above board.

Grewal’s dental practice was hit with a wave of negative reviews on Yelp after footage of her speech spread through social media, although many appeared to be critics of her remarks and not actual patients.

Despite Grewal’s insistence that her remarks were meant to be funny, she said she faced a wave of negative reviews warning patients not to trust her because of her political activities.

One reviewer cited the gala speech as they wrote: ‘I just seen footage of this dentist talking about mistreatment of patients if they are not Trump supporters. She said she removes the laughing gas if her patients disapprove of her MAGA hat.

‘She also made fun of her patients who wore masks. I would not patronize this business because the dentist’s behavior in that video on TikTok is unethical. She has not apologized. Dental treatment should not be political.’

Another wrote: ‘This doctor bragged on video that she treats patients differently based on their political views. This is not just unprofessional. It is unethical and scary. She should never work in a medical office again.’

Daily Mail has contacted Dr Grewal’s Skyline Smiles for comment.