Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday found himself repeatedly exasperated by the questions GOP senators posed during a Senate Health Committee hearing. Among the Republicans to earn his ire was Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who demanded his public financial disclosures be made public — even though they already are.
Fauci also sparred with long-time nemesis Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), calling the senator out over his efforts to fundraise off of his ongoing attacks against the White House chief medical adviser.
Marshall pressed Fauci’s buttons after conspiratorially insisting that the nation’s top infectious diseases expert had not made his financial disclosure form available to the public.
Fauci pointed out that his financial disclosures have, in fact, been available to the public for years because of his work at NIAID.
“What are you talking about?” Fauci asked the senator. “My financial disclosures are public knowledge and have been so.”
“You are getting amazingly wrong information,” he marveled.
After Marshall’s time ended, the White House chief medical adviser was caught on a hot mic continuing to vent: “What a moron,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
Fauci also found himself sparring with Paul once again. This time, Fauci came prepared with images of Paul’s fundraising materials, which he used to illustrate that the GOP senator is trying to fundraise off of his repeated attacks against the White House chief medical adviser.
“You go to Rand Paul’s website, and you see ‘fire Dr. Fauci’ with a little box that says ‘contribute here!’” Fauci said during the hearing, holding up examples of Paul’s campaign materials. “You can do $5, $10, $20, $100.”
“So you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,” he told the senator. “So I ask myself why would the senator want to do this?”
Fauci expressed his ongoing frustration, noting that Paul’s attacks against him have spurred an escalation in the death threats he has received from the “crazies out there.”
“What happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue, all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there, and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family, and my children will have seen phone calls because people are lying about me,” Fauci said.
As an example, Fauci pointed to an armed man who was arrested last month in Iowa after claiming he was traveling from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. to kill Fauci. The man reportedly was in possession of an assault rifle and ammunition, as well as a “kill list” of people he planned to attack in Washington, D.C., which included Fauci, President Biden and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Since 2020, Paul and Fauci have gotten into heated exchanges during Senate hearings after the GOP senator criticized the nation’s top infectious disease expert for his mitigation recommendations and repeatedly pushed a theory that suggests the coronavirus started in a Wuhan research lab before escaping. Some fringey, right-wing iterations of the theory baselessly accuse Fauci of personally having a hand in the supposed lab leak.
