In what became a fiery rant on MSNBC’s MTP: Daily Wednesday, Fauci — speaking with host Chuck Todd — blasted those attacking him on a variety of subjects ranging from his mask advocacy to the question of whether the National Institute of Health (NIH) funded gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The impetus for Fauci’s screed on Wednesday was a video from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who floated a conspiracy theory that the infectious disease expert was colluding with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a narrative about Covid-19.
“Dr. Fauci was emailing with Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, trying to create that narrative,” Blackburn said. “Cherrypicking information so that you would only know what they wanted you to know, and there would be a narrative that would fit with this cherrypicked information.”
“I don’t have a clue what she just said,” Fauci said, curtly. “I don’t have a clue of what she’s talking about. … And I’m sorry, I don’t want to be pejorative against a united States senator but I have no idea what she’s talking about. And you know Chuck, if you go through each and every one of the points which are so ridiculous, just painfully ridiculous, if you go through each and every one of them, you can explain and debunk it immediately.”
Fauci then directed his comments more broadly — towards not just Blackburn but all of his critics;
“It’s very dangerous, Chuck, because a lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. Because all of the things that I have spoken about consistently from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people, and there was pushback against me.
So if you are trying to get at me as a public health official and scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science. And anybody that looks at what is going on clearly sees that. You have to be asleep not to see that.”
So if you are trying to get at me as a public health official and scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science. And anybody that looks at what is going on clearly sees that. You have to be asleep not to see that.”
Watch above, via MSNBC.
