Anthony Fauci Rips Sen. Ted Cruz Over Covid-19 Conspiracy Theory & Supporting Jan. 6 Rioters

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and President Joe Biden‘s chief medical advisor, blasted United States Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday’s edition of CBS’s Face the Nation for having called for him to be prosecuted for supposedly lying to Congress over a false conspiracy theory that the National Institutes of Health conducted clandestine virus research in China that led to the initial Covid-19 outbreak and the ensuing pandemic.

“In May, Dr. Fauci said, ‘The NIH has not ever and does not now, fund gain-of-function research.’ But early this month, the NIH contradicted that. It’s a crime to knowingly lie to Congress, so I asked AG Garland if he’d appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci,” Cruz said at a Senate hearing last month.

 

Fauci denounced Cruz’s anti-science rhetoric and also knocked Cruz for supporting the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.

Host Margaret Brennan:

Senator Cruz told the attorney general you should be prosecuted.

Fauci:

Yeah. I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted? What happened on Jan. 6, Senator?

Brennan:

Do you think that this is about making you a scapegoat to deflect–

Fauci:

Of course-

Brennan:

-From President [Donald] Trump?

Fauci:

Of course, you have to be asleep not to figure that one out.

Brennan:

Well, there are a lot of Republican Senators taking aim at this. I mean–

Fauci:

That’s OK, I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying.

Brennan:

It just, it seems, another layer of danger to play politics around matters of life and death.

Fauci:

Right, exactly. Exactly. And to me, that’s- that’s unbelievably bad because all I want to do is save people’s lives. That’s what I have done for the last 50 years, 40 of which was 37 of which was leading the institute. And when I see people who scattered around misinformation and lies that can actually endanger the lives of people, but also it is very easy to pick out an individual and make them a target because that’s what people can focus on. But you’re talking about systems, you’re talking about the CDC, you’re talking about the FDA, you’re talking about science in general. So if they want to, I mean, anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this. So if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there’s a person there. There’s a face, there’s a voice you can recognize, you see him on television. So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I’m not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever. And if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave. And that’s what I worry about.

Watch the full interview below: