On Tuesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson took aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci, calling him a “filthy little demagogue” after Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) had confronted Fauci earlier in the day at a Senate hearing.
Carlson began, “Turns out, Tony Fauci’s even more loathsome and complicit even than his toughest critics ever alleged. Today, two Republican congressmen, James Comer and Jim Jordan, released emails that show Fauci was warned by scientists at the very beginning of the Corona pandemic this virus very likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That’s the same lab where a Fauci agency was funding gain-of-function research.”
Carlson cited a letter from House Oversight Committee Republicans which stated, “On February 1, 2020, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Collins, and at least 11 other scientists convened a conference call to discuss Covid 19. … It was on this conference call that Drs. Fauci & Collins were first warned that Covid 19 may have leaked from the WIV &, further, may have been intentionally genetically manipulated.”
“So that’s news,” Carlson commented sardonically. “By the way, that was a year before it became the common view of the origin of Covid. During that year, anyone who raised the question was denounced as a racist. Anti-Asian or something. But it turned out to be very likely true.”
Then he turned to the mano-a-mano confrontation between Paul and Fauci in which Paul began by criticizing Fauci’s handling of and response to the pandemic.
Carlson then introduced a video clip of the exchange by saying, “So today, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, asked Fauci about all this. Watch how Fauci responds.”
Paul: Did scientists come to you privately and say, “No way this came from the lab”? Or was their initial impression, Dr. Gary and others that were involved, was their initial impression actually that it looked very suspicious for a virus that came from a lab.
Fauci: Senator, we are here at a committee to look at a virus now that’s killed almost 900,000 people, and the purpose of the committee was to try to get things out how we can help to get the American public, and you keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality.
Carlson snapped, “He’s such a filthy little demagogue. Filthy little demagogue. Doesn’t answer the question, makes it all about him, solipsist that he is, and then he whips around and accuses Rand Paul of endangering his life. Fauci held up a page from Rand Paul’s website that read ‘Fire Tony Fauci.’ Now, Fauci is the highest-paid federal employee and one of the longest-serving. He works for us, so we have a right not to want him to work for us anymore, that’s called democracy. But according to Fauci, that’s illegitimate. He blamed Rand Paul’s webpage for alleged threats of violence against him. In other words, if you criticized me you’re trying to get me killed.”
Carlson later continued, “Meanwhile, Fauci refused to take any responsibility for the lockdowns that he supported that wrecked the country in a lot of ways.” Carlson played the clip of Paul asking, “Do you think the lockdowns were good for our kids? Do you think we slowed down the death rate? More people have died now under President Biden than under President Trump. You are the one responsible. You are the architect. You are the lead architect for the response from the government and now 800,000 people have died. Do you think it’s a winning success what you’ve advocated for government?”
Fauci answered, “Senator, first of all, if you look at everything that I said, you accuse me of in a monolithic way telling people what they need to do. Everything that I’ve said has been in support of CDC guidelines: wear a mask; get boosted —”
Carlson said bitingly, “Are you following the reasoning here? So the first time Rand Paul asks him a question Fauci says almost a million people have died, you can’t ask me that question. So then Rand Paul says yeah, almost a million people have died but you were making the rules. So you’re not taking any responsibility for that? And Fauci, rather than answer the question, or manning up in any way, says, well, I wasn’t really in charge; I was just giving suggestions on TV.”
Carlson repeated, “Filthy demagogue.”