Dr. Fauci: What’s a January 6th Defendant Doing at a Covid Hearing?

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Dr.
>> You on tonight. I mean it was a remarkable day on Capitol Hill and obviously, you‘re not a stranger to testifying before Congress or even pretty contentious here. Brains, but I just wonder how today compares to the other times that you‘ve been up on Capitol Hill, testify before lawmakers well, as you know, Caitlin, thank you for having me.
>> Hundreds of times over the last 40 years, over Congress. And there‘s always been differences of opinion, differences of audiology criticisms, and things like that.
>> That we see now just in the country in general.
>> During this hearing was really quite unfortunate because the purpose of hearings or to try and figure out how we can do better so that next time if and when we all faced with a pandemic we‘d be better prepared and we could benefit if mistakes were made, we identify them and we try to correct them for the future that‘s not what we saw today as shown by the clip you showed with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, that was nothing about trying to to do better. Unfortunately.
>> The end about the threats that you and your family are still getting even to this day and for those who don‘t know that was your wife, Christine, who was esteemed in her own rights, sitting behind you there. I just wonder if you ever thought that you would still be getting threats like that, credible threats against your life. Even now, two years out of government service it‘s very interesting.
>> Kaitlan, that whenever somebody gets up, whether it‘s a news media Fox News, does it a lot, or it‘s someone body in the Congress who gets up and makes a public statement that I‘m responsible for the deaths of x number of people because of policies. Okay. Some crazy idea that I created the virus immediately.
>> The death threats, go way up so that‘s the reason why I‘m still getting death threats when you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene. In today‘s hearing, those are the kind of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believed that kind of nonsense.
>> Behind you today, we have them highlighted right now on the screen. But but that person that‘s Brandon fellows, he‘s actually January 6, defendant, who was removed from the hearing later on and as he was leaving, I don‘t know if you could hear him, but we heard him on camera shouting that that he believed also that you belong in prison. Did you hear that I didn‘t hear it, but it was brought to my attention before and there was also someone behind me.
>> Same person who was identified as someone who just got out of jail for being arrested for the January three sixth attack on the Capitol. Now, what somebody like that doing at a hearing about Covid I mean, it was it was remarkable just to see who was in that room today and to hear what they were how they were responding to it, and obviously that hearing room was not the haven for what it was supposed to be about the genuine dialogue about how the government handled Covid-19, how to be better prepared for the next inevitable pandemic.
>> About that tonight. And I do wonder, do you still believe that the evidence that you‘ve seen does point to Covid originating from animals as opposed to by humans in a lab kaitlan, as I said at the hearing.
>> Interview. You have to keep an open mind since there is no definitive proof, one way or the other, it‘s one or the other. When I I look at the scientific evidence, I don‘t see any evidence that‘s concrete at all that it‘s a lab leak, even though a lot of people talk about it, I still think it‘s a possibility, but I haven‘t seen any evidence where there is reasonably good evidence, not definitive. That is suggestive, strongly suggestive that it came from a natural reservoir of an animal jumping into humans, having that, I repeat, I still keep an open mind because the definitive proof is not there. But in my mind it weighs more heavily of one than the other.
>> With this was a lack of accountability in working with the Chinese his government on this. I mean, they were evading attempts to try to figure out what happened here. And given that, you testified, tell you said that neither you nor anyone can account for everything that happens inside of China. But I wonder what that means for American research dollars that go there and whether you think that means None of them should be sent there, that they should try to limit them. How should that happen? Going forward kaitlan, if you look at the history going back decades of collaborations with Chinese scientists, we‘re not talking about Chinese officials were talking about China any scientists who‘ve collaborated with the European Union, with the United States, with Canada, with Australia. A lot of very good important science that has contributed to global health has come from collaborations with the Chinese now, obviously because of the tension that‘s gone wrong on right now, that‘s changed a bit.
>> Normality where there can be mutual benefit of inter elaborate international collaboration among sciences. The way it‘s been for decades. This is just very recent. This degree of tension that we‘re seeing.
>> Came up today was focused on the us and how a deputy of yours at it the‘90s age bragged about evading federal records laws and deleting emails to where they couldn‘t be produced to reporters people, members of the public, hoover, requesting them. And you talked about this, but what changes do you believe the NIH should make to ensure that these open records request which which we believe are fundamentally important or not purposefully obstructed by officials yeah. Well, first of all, kaitlan, let me say that the individual who did that was wrong. That is unexcused, able inappropriate. And that is not the way things go with the NIH. That is an outlier and not typical at all of the hundreds, if not thousands a very hard working committed people at the national institutes of health so I hope that the public and the audience doesn‘t realize or doesn‘t come to the conclusion if I might say that one single person who did something that is totally unacceptable and very inappropriate, that that is reflective of the thousands of people who are doing their job and are committed to the health of this country and so what should be done differently?
>> Concern that people see that and you say it‘s it was an outlier, but there‘s a concern that it does diminish trust and really in public health overall, obviously at a time when it‘s needed the money most well, I‘m not sure what you can do. Kaitlan. It is it is not appropriate and it‘s in fact illegal and a violation of regulations to mess with public records that are official business records. And that was done and that‘s unfortunate but that happens when one person does something that‘s inappropriate and wrong. I said, I‘m not sure what kind of correction we‘re talking about except to say that that is by no means typical of the conduct of the large, large numbers of people who work at the NIH yeah.
>> What I think people would like to walk away from a hearing like today is to see bipartisanship given scientists do say it‘s inevitable that we‘ll see another pandemic depending on when that is and from where you sit right now as a country, are we prepared to deal with another pandemic and your view? I think we have a ways to go.
>> Some missteps along the way. I think there‘s some systemic issues that need to be addressed. I mentioned it at the hearing today that are association and connectivity between the local public health issue choose and the central CDC and other public health issues. There isn‘t the kind of real-time connectivity the CDC‘s aware of that. And they‘re trying to correct that. And I think the kinds of things we saw was a weakness at the public health implementation we did extremely well from the scientific standpoint. The investment of decades of research led to a vaccine in 11 months, which is unprecedented in the history of vaccinology, that has resulted in the saving of millions of lives. So when it comes to the science, we did well, we‘ve got to do better at the public health health level.
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