Republican senators read Anthony Fauci the riot act at the recent Senate hearing about the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ personal and public machinations during the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was eloquent in blasting Fauci for saying one thing and doing another, all the while personally profiting from the global tragedy. But it was Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) words to Fauci that are most memorable:
<blockquote>
It wasn’t just about the money, really, was it? It was really about a power trip. I mean, through all of this, you want to be the most famous scientist in the world. You were so focused on getting every award and every drop of cash that you could, all because you wanted to be on TV. You wanted to be the Sun God of Science. You wanted to be the guy who was in charge of it all.
</blockquote>
The “Sun God of Science” comment resonates — and not just because Fauci previously boasted that “attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science” and “they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.” It resonates because Fauci is emblematic of a breed of scientist whose scientific work takes a remote back seat to his overblown ego and non-science agenda.
Another area of science that has its share of sun gods is climate. Former chief NASA climate scientist James Hansen launched the climate hoax with his infamous June 1988 Senate <a href="https://junkscience.com/2023/06/wrong-again-james-hansens-1988-senate-testimony-edition/">testimony</a>, held during a heat wave and in a Senate room where staffers had left the windows open overnight. After launching climate hysteria and then two decades of promoting it, Hansen had the temerity to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/02/11/censorship-is-alleged-at-noaa-span-classbankheadscientists-afraid-to-speak-out-nasa-climate-expert-reports-span/44e8063d-2f26-4c66-84cd-b2d3ec59bf08/">accuse</a> the Bush administration in 2006 of trying to censor him because it wanted to review his (a government employee’s) public statements on climate.
Another climate sun god for the books is Michael Mann, whose infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph and intrigues against climate skeptics were exposed by the 2009 <a href="https://commonwealthfoundation.org/commentary/2010/01/19/mann-made-global-warming/">Climategate</a> scandal. Subsequent criticism of Mann led to an ongoing 14-year defamation lawsuit, in which Mann wound up being <a href="https://x.com/JunkScience/status/2014399914126532914">sanctioned</a> by the trial judge for providing false evidence to the jury on the key issue (damages). Mann has even falsely <a href="https://junkscience.com/2021/01/michael-mann-still-fancies-himself-as-a-nobel-prize-winner/">claimed</a> to be a Nobel Prize winner.
Despite all this, Mann was nevertheless cited as a credible source by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) — a veritable museum of dubious Sun Gods of Science — in the now-exposed and discredited scientific reference manual for judges it prepared last year for the Federal Judicial Center.
The NAS allowed the manual’s chapter on climate science to be written by climate activists involved in pending litigation against the oil industry. Although the Federal Judicial Center removed the climate chapter from its own edition, NAS retained it in the copy on its website.
Scientists must be judged by the tangible scientific knowledge and gains they produce — not the size and marketing of their egos. Neither Fauci, Hansen, nor Mann has any Nobel Prize-level scientific accomplishment under their belts. They have never earned any special deference from the rest of us mere mortals. Instead, Fauci helped fuel the COVID pandemic, and Hansen and Mann promoted climate panic — both of which have been disastrous for science and the society that science is supposed to serve.
***
Steve Milloy is a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute and posts on X at @JunkScience.

US-POLITICS-VIRUS-HEALTH

Fauci And The Danger Of Following The Sun Gods Of Science

Anthony Fauci

DW Opinion

James Hansen

Michael Mann

A key Senate committee voted Thursday morning to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt for repeatedly refusing to answer questions about his handling of the COVID pandemic.  
The Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), voted 8-7 to adopt a resolution from the Kentucky Republican holding Fauci in contempt. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats voted against. Fauci pleaded the Fifth more than 100 times after he was called in to give testimony last week on coronavirus funding at the Wuhan lab in China and the government response to the pandemic. 
“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence,” Paul said. &#8220;All that was required from Anthony Fauci last week was to tell the truth. He had no liability if he told the truth.&#8221;
“More than a million Americans died from COVID. Many of them died alone. Workers were forced to choose between a mandate and a job they needed. Businesses closed and never reopened. Children lost years of school. They will never get back. Americans lost the freedom to work, to worship, and to decide what went into their own bodies. Nothing we do today can undo those losses, but silence does not honor them either,” he added. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-every-page-of-faucis-tell-all-diary">READ IT: Every Page Of Fauci’s Tell-All Diary</a>
Paul told The Daily Wire on Wednesday that he planned to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department after his resolution passed committee. 
“Historically, votes like this have gone to the full Senate, but I think there’s no absolute rule that says we can’t send it directly to the Department of Justice,” Paul said. “So my plan is that if we win the vote on Thursday, to immediately send it to the Department of Justice with a recommendation for prosecution, even if it passes the whole Senate.”
If convicted of contempt of Congress, Fauci could be <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10974">fined</a> up to $100,000 and sentenced to up to one year in prison. During the Biden administration, Trump allies Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were sentenced to prison after being held in contempt of Congress.
President Joe Biden issued a last-minute pardon to Fauci for his conduct during COVID just hours before he left office.
Before the vote, Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) claimed that holding Fauci in contempt would “harm our ability to conduct future investigations and disregard constitutional protections long recognized by the U.S. Senate.” He also said he would oppose Paul sending the criminal referral without approval from the full Senate. 
Democrats repeatedly failed to get motions passed to delay the vote on the contempt resolution.
As part of Paul&#8217;s investigation into Fauci, the committee obtained and released his diaries, which were maintained on government servers. The committee also obtained Fauci&#8217;s phone records from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Anthony Fauci Testifies with Rand Paul and Homeland Security Committee

Fauci Held In Contempt After Refusing To Answer Questions About Bombshell Diary

COVID-19

Gary Peters

Rand Paul

Senate

A Senate panel investigating Dr. Anthony Fauci has reportedly obtained a copy of the cellphone he used during the COVID-19 pandemic ahead of a key committee vote Thursday to hold him in contempt of Congress. 
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/anthony-fauci-covid-phone-senate-96ebd8be?st=68LAAW">Wall Street Journal</a> reported Wednesday that the Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, transferred a copy of the phone&#8217;s records to the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. 
Fauci used the phone during his tenure as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to The Journal, which also revealed that Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have obtained &#8220;millions of additional Fauci-related pages&#8221; from government servers.
On Wednesday, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/when-it-comes-to-anthony-fauci-rand-paul-is-just-getting-started?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Mary+Margaret+Olohan&amp;category=Original&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=When+It+Comes+To+Anthony+Fauci%2C+Rand+Paul+Is+Just+Getting+Started">The Daily Wire</a> interviewed Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, whose release of Fauci&#8217;s private diaries helped set the stage for an explosive Capitol Hill hearing where Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.
“Historically, votes like this have gone to the full Senate, but I think there’s no absolute rule that says we can’t send it directly to the Department of Justice,” Paul said. “So my plan is that if we win the vote on Thursday, to immediately send it to the Department of Justice with a recommendation for prosecution, even if it passes the whole Senate.”
Paul’s office sent two criminal referrals to the Biden Justice Department, the senator said, and two more under President Donald Trump’s administration.
“This will be the first time that our entire committee or the majority of our committee sends it,” he noted. “So we’ll see what happens. We’ll discuss with [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune whether or not he thinks he can get the votes to do it on the floor.”
A floor vote would require 60 votes to pass, meaning Democrats would have to cooperate. Last week, Thune said that Fauci’s answers were “completely inadequate” and that the floor vote was “certainly an option that ought to be available to us.”
Paul told The Daily Wire that he does not expect Democrats to support a contempt vote and that he wants the Justice Department to prosecute Fauci for contempt of Congress. He plans to send the DOJ a legal brief arguing that Fauci could not invoke the Fifth Amendment because President Joe Biden&#8217;s pardon eliminated any risk of self-incrimination, leaving him with only an obligation to answer truthfully.
Statutory penalties for <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/192">contempt of Congress</a>, a federal misdemeanor, carry fines between $100 and $100,000 and a mandatory sentence of one to 12 months in prison.
“This is an important case because I think a lot of people anticipate that President Trump is going to issue similar pardons to many people in his administration who will end up being called before Congress, and the precedent here is important,” Mark Osler, a law professor and pardon power expert, told the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fauci-fifth-amendment-congress-justice-department-paul-868a0dfcf016d830571fb6a78afae4f9">Associated Press. </a>
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

US-POLITICS-HEALTH-VIRUS-HEARING

Fauci’s COVID Phone Turned Over To Senate Panel Ahead Of Contempt Vote

Coronavirus

fauci diaries

Health

Investigations

News

Pandemic

Politics

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

U.S. Senate

“I wasn’t part of the problem” during Covid-19, insisted CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday. “Let me just say, for the record, that I am not saying that the entire Covid reaction was accurate. It was a scary time, and people made mistakes.” Bash later added that “What we were doing in Covid… is getting the best information, the best science that we can and putting it out there.”
But Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary shows that the media was more interested in pushing specific narratives and promoting Fauci than it was in getting the “best information” to the public. On April 17, 2021, for example, Bash herself texted Fauci, “I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I&#8230;. As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply ‘Mr. Jordan, go f&#8212; yourself.’”
Bash was referring to a House Oversight Committee hearing in which Representative Jim Jordan pointed out many of the “mistakes” Bash now admits were made.
The next day, Bash sent Fauci another text “pointing out that Vanity Fair recently had a headline that said: Jim Jordan trips over his own asshole trying to debate Anthony Fauci.”
Since Senator Rand Paul released Fauci’s diary, journalists have claimed that he had no real authority to impose lockdowns or mandates, suggesting it wasn’t their job to hold him accountable. “Dr. Fauci did not have the authority to force anyone to do anything,” the New York Times <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/1de9a5f6-7f9b-447d-a6cf-454f3904954f?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">stated</a>.
But his diary shows how members of the media worked to help Fauci win policy debates against President Donald Trump. As early as March 11, 2020, Fauci was aware that the press was heavily on his side, noting, “the CNN commentators (Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, David Gergon, David Gregory) all discussed me as the adult in the room and the person [we] should all trust.”
In this way, the media worked to undermine the authority of the democratically elected president by upholding Fauci, an unelected bureaucrat, as the ultimate expert and truth-teller. While today they claim that Fauci had no power, six years ago they insisted he be granted nearly unlimited power.
When Trump said Fauci disagreed with a decision in May 2020, Fauci noted that “Chris Cuomo, and Jake Tapper are trying to clarify this in my defense on their shows.” In October 2020, Kaitlan Collins contacted Fauci about a campaign ad and tweeted out a statement for him, which “went totally viral on twitter [sic] and several networks and cable reported it.”
Fauci had personal relationships with several members of the press. On April 13, 2020, he noted that CNN’s Jake Tapper called him “to make sure the interview did not cause me any problems.” On July 1, 2020, Fauci wrote that he had dinner with Tapper and his wife. “Terrific couple. Friendship building.” In October, they had dinner again at Fauci’s home.
Journalists didn’t try to hide their affection for Fauci. Chris Cuomo “gave a wonderful explanation to viewers how close and good friends we are and how I checked in on him every night including weekends for weeks during his COVID illness,” Fauci noted in May 2020. “Never saw something like that on TV.”
It’s no coincidence that much of Fauci’s diary is spent recording his various appearances and interviews. Under pressure from the media, political leaders deferred to Fauci when crafting policy, including on issues like school closures, his diary <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/145efd6c-86b7-482c-b4b8-f7635507796e?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">shows</a>.
Rather than, as Bash claimed, sharing the “best science” with viewers, TV and print journalists aired Fauci’s views without examining the evidence. If they had examined it, they would have reported on the publicly available data Fauci privately discussed in his diary. Fauci knew, for example, that vaccines <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/85c12387-d7b7-4030-9098-eb5104e7c211?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">did not prevent</a>infection and transmission and that natural immunity <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2b5df709-c1c1-49d3-90cc-0b2576248bcc?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">was protective</a>. These facts made vaccine mandates unnecessary, yet he <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4ac32575-f61a-43e6-a09b-a020e21d056e?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">relentlessly</a> <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a2d50c08-d88d-42bf-bfd7-7a0b31cd3cc4?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">sought</a> to implement them.
Years later, news outlets have failed to accurately report on Covid, even retrospectively. For instance, they ignored documents <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4d90b8be-87d4-4ddb-ab36-06c0df3989fc?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">revealing</a> that the CDC received concerning reports about vaccine-induced myocarditis in 2021, and that the CDC Director lied about it. And in 2023, mainstream media outlets did not cover extensive records showing that Fauci and other scientists initially believed Covid originated from a lab in Wuhan before <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/071fc69c-b472-40f6-bb19-2e2b08a7a310?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">collaborating</a> to dismiss the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory.”
While news anchors like Bash may still believe that Covid was well-managed despite a few “mistakes,” it is by now undeniable that their preferred policies created enormous backlash not just against Fauci personally, but against medical institutions, the Democratic Party, and the media itself.
Much of this backlash is due to the kind of duplicitousness displayed in Fauci’s diary. Scientists and officials privately acknowledged the realities of gain-of-function research, vaccine-induced myocarditis, and natural immunity, all while giving the public entirely different messages and using censorship to enforce compliance.
The liberal media’s response to the Fauci hearing shows a broad lack of understanding, or lack of desire to understand. With defending Covid lockdowns and mandates still a political liability, it would be strategically wise for journalists to avoid doubling down. So why do they continue to insist that criticism of Fauci is baseless? Why can’t they reckon with what really happened during Covid?
In 2020 and 2021, The New York Times and Washington Post published article after article in support of school closures. They claimed Covid could <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/87cced0f-80ec-4740-b2f5-0309b35815e1?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“soar”</a> if schools reopened, that it was <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/46423805-72cc-495a-97eb-3f1831066983?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">risky</a> for children to play together, and that virtual learning provided black families a <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ee52dc86-25b1-4acc-a595-f959dd34929a?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">relief</a> from racism. They published headlines like <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/c96a5af3-f7d9-4416-93f3-35fe13a398f9?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“Can We Stop Telling ‘Corona Kids’ How Little They Are Learning?,”</a> <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/d349090c-ca97-4d2a-a95b-6a23e88b0142?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“The Racist Effects of School Reopening During the Pandemic—By a Teacher,”</a> <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/c272127a-2785-4a4b-bf44-b16f84308569?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“Does It Hurt Children to Measure Pandemic Learning Loss?”</a> and <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a1c9c63a-ac68-4be5-a707-431dbd7c1ef1?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“Actually Wearing a Mask Can Help Your Child Learn.”</a>
This was all despite the fact that European nations had safely reopened their public schools in 2020 and education ministers in the European Union announced that they saw no negative consequences from reopening schools. As David Zweig <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/c387c76e-9078-450c-8c6c-5193f63a498a?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">points out</a>, no one in legacy media reported on this.
At first, when the Chinese government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, China, many in the liberal media questioned the approach, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/d7592799-bbab-40e9-bea6-9347ae1257c4?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">noting</a> that it would violate human rights and be ineffective. Democratic politicians <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/555f575b-3cbe-44fc-a08e-e8600245cfb1?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">encouraged</a> people to go to Chinatown and said that concern about Covid was <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/efee174c-e87b-49ff-9e9b-c09977d01ec7?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">racist</a>.
But when it became clear that Covid offered unprecedented power for the professional expert class, the media and the broader Left changed their approach. “Many progressives see the coronavirus response,” <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/1be47999-c7b5-4554-be92-3b6d21143db6?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">noted</a> NPR in May 2020, “as a chance to prove that policies they support can work and should be made permanent… Now there is a crisis, and Democrats want to use this moment to remake the system.”
Covid could thus be used for social restructuring, locking in government spending, and continuously attacking Trump as a mass killer. Before Covid, Trump had remained politically resilient. In January 2020, the percentage of Americans satisfied with “the way things are going” went up to <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/fe4735fd-16d0-4f6e-8a2c-39ab27d4d56a?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">45 percent</a>, the highest since February 2005. And Trump had signaled that if he achieved a second term, he would take aim at many of the Left’s core achievements, including in the areas of education and immigration.
Covid offered a chance to thwart this trajectory while cementing the authority of the managerial class over democratic institutions in the name of “safety” and “saving lives.”
The Left equated wrongthink and “misinformation” with murder, justifying unprecedented censorship. When three epidemiologists from Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard simply suggested an alternative approach in the Great Barrington Declaration, the New York Times called it “dangerous” for not supporting lockdowns. Journalists denounced dissenters and “the unvaccinated” in increasingly dehumanizing terms.
<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ae808a81-31bc-47b3-8e97-e7e4e1dc3086?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“I’m Furious at the Unvaccinated,”</a> one column was titled in The New York Times. <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/fed65b3d-1936-42f2-83dc-7137eeee445c?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“Unvaxxed, Unmasked and Putting Our Kids at Risk,”</a> read another. <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/2da283db-7774-45c6-aa93-eecfce685cdf?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“The Unvaccinated Are a Risk to All of Us,”</a> a Bloomberg headline stated.
The unvaccinated, explained CNN’s Don Lemon, were <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f578a6c0-ebb5-4da9-9611-15ef58896575?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“idiotic and nonsensical.” </a>It was time to “start shaming them” or “leave them behind,” he said. Wrote a columnist in the Los Angeles Times, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/8fe97ded-98ab-4af4-a043-f216a8f0c036?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">“Mocking anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes, but may be necessary.</a>” Others warned of “compassion fatigue” for the unvaccinated and platformed doctors who said they would refuse to treat them.
Liberal politicians who the media supported denounced their own citizens. President Joe Biden <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/5a22104a-7e52-4313-a378-24e7e5884122?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">said</a> in the fall of 2021 that his “patience [was] wearing thin” and that we needed to “protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers.” He declared a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/a8932eea-429a-4907-97e5-5b66354d89ed?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">warned</a> “the unvaccinated” that they would face a “winter of severe illness and death.”
“Do we tolerate these people?” <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/5ae06228-5b4f-4110-aade-80d5c82d7052?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">asked</a> Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, about the unvaccinated. They “are very often misogynistic and racist.” French President Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/ba52db55-af3a-4c3c-ae01-5c74e4e71974?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">vowed</a> to put “pressure on the unvaccinated by limiting… access [to] social activities.” Someone who refuses the Covid vaccine, he said, is “not a citizen.” <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/347e4a6d-8101-4cd4-9e90-805d751c1172?j=eyJ1IjoiMjk0dHMifQ.cmJkfm0X0r0SrUjdPQSLO8z8KA2siPUsFk8HgV3kFag">Said</a> a commentator in The Washington Post, “Macron is right: It’s time to make life a living hell for anti-vaxxers.”
So-called “anti-vaxxers” and “anti-maskers” represented resistance to rule by experts, and their very survival was evidence that the experts, and the journalists who endorsed them, were wrong.
***
This is the first section of the author’s full essay. You can read the rest on Public <a href="https://www.public.news/p/journalists-are-still-defending-fauci">here</a> and <a href="https://www.public.news/">subscribe</a> to the newsletter.
Alex Gutentag is a Senior Editor for Public and writes about censorship, government abuse of power, and other topics. She has been a columnist for Tablet and a contributing editor for Compact. She is based in California.

Meet the Press – Season 73

COVID Bitter Clingers In The Media Will Never End Their Fauci Love Affair

Chris Cuomo

COVID

Dana Bash

House Oversight Committee

Jake Tapper

Justin Trudeau

Screenshot 2026-08-05 at 10.51.46 AM

When It Comes To Anthony Fauci, Rand Paul Is Just Getting Started

And for his final act, Aaron Rodgers blasted Anthony Fauci on ESPN.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;I&#8217;m pleading the Fifth 😂😂
You&#8217;ve gotta be kidding me&#8221; ~ <a href="https://x.com/AaronRodgers12?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AaronRodgers12</a> <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/PMSLive?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PMSLive</a> <a href="https://t.co/kg3y0uMxxR">pic.twitter.com/kg3y0uMxxR</a>
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) <a href="https://x.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/2084338121101983920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, ostensibly playing out his last season in the league, gave Pat McAfee a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aaron-rodgers-rips-into-fauci-during-live-on-espn">response</a> for the ages when asked how he&#8217;s feeling about the year ahead.
“I’m gonna plead the fifth. Like that absolute coward Tony Fauci. Absolute coward. Are you kidding me? &#8230; What are you scared of Tony? I thought you were science?”
WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF, TONY. I felt that one in my chest. Black and gold, baby. That&#8217;s my quarterback.
But the 42-year-old veteran didn&#8217;t stop there. For his own two minutes of hate, he tore into &#8220;The Science,&#8221; the network covering it, and the gaslighting that came bundled with both:
<blockquote>How much time did they spend on that? How much time did they spend on my responses every week, on my vaccination status, on Taylor and Travis&#8217;s wedding? Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci? I bet they didn&#8217;t. &#8230; What are you gonna say about me now?</blockquote>
My heart rate spiked just typing that. The crowd was roaring. Somewhere in the back, a Yinzer was chanting &#8220;YES&#8221; like it was a third-down stop. The Terrible Towels were out in July. Their quarterback was finally getting his day in court, four years after the media was his judge, jury, and executioner, and he made the most of it.
When my kids ask why the Steelers are goated, I&#8217;m going to show them this clip. Not the Immaculate Reception, not Santonio Holmes’ Super Bowl toe-tap — this. The moment one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game looked into a camera and said, on behalf of everyone who got laughed out of the room for asking questions: I was right, and I&#8217;m not sorry.
And there was no better man to deliver it. Rodgers wasn&#8217;t vaccinated during the 2021 season; instead, he pursued alternative treatment under the supervision of a holistic doctor. He told reporters that August he&#8217;d been &#8220;immunized;” a precise, deliberate word, and the press treated it like a shibboleth. The one adjective that was supposed to sort the compliant from the heretics.
“Command room: We can now confirm his vaccination status. Still, no word on his wife’s location.”
However, when he tested positive weeks later, and the truth came out, the same outlets that had spent a season obsessing over one man&#8217;s vaccine record just about detonated.
ESPN, CNN, all the big guys, they went on a two-week rampage treating his status like a hull breach. Like the ship had hit the iceberg. Like WWEleven had broken out. Because a healthy, able-bodied adult took ivermectin instead of a vaccine.
And the fallout of the wall-to-wall coverage of the anti-vax villain? A $14,650 personal fine and a $300,000 hit to the Packers, for the crime of not forcing a mask onto their quarterback during press conferences. Prevea Health walked away from a nine-year partnership overnight. State Farm quietly slashed his airtime. He got the full scarlet-letter treatment for refusing to performative compliance for the crusade, right alongside the millions of Americans who said no and paid for it with their jobs.
Now, four years later, training camp is underway, the sun&#8217;s out over Latrobe, the Steelers haven&#8217;t laid a finger on him for saying any of it, and Anthony Fauci&#8217;s little girl diary just got read into the Congressional record. I&#8217;d wager Aaron Rodgers is having a pretty good week.
He told Yinz so.
Turns out Fauci <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-jr-owns-dana-bash-proving-media-fed-covid-hysteria?author=Chloe+Trapanotto&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Jr.+Owns+Dana+Bash+Proving+Media+Fed+COVID+Hysteria">understood</a> early that COVID behaved like a bad flu, that the virus likely came from a lab in Wuhan (when are we gonna reprimand China for this?), and that the vaccine was never going to stop transmission the way &#8220;the science&#8221; insisted it would.
The Science God probably would’ve told us the truth, but he was a tad busy posing for magazine covers, having dinner with important people, and directing his employees to enter his name for cash prizes.
And last week, instead of answering for it to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, he pleaded the Fifth 111 times. Coward, indeed.
Fauci can deny it happened all he wants, and so can CNN and ESPN, but Rodgers isn’t going to let them forget that it did, and neither are we.
But for now, in between his rants and record-setting rundowns, he’ll be on the field. Because as he told McAfee, he doesn’t care anymore about anything but playing his best ball.
He&#8217;s going out with a bang; let&#8217;s hope it ends with a ring.

Baltimore Ravens v Pittsburgh Steelers – NFL 2025

For Aaron Rodgers, Vindication Has A Pittsburgh Accent

Aaron Rodgers

Covid vaccine

ESPN

Newly released emails show that Dr. Anthony Fauci, while serving as a top member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, pressured Dr. Deborah Birx to back his play and conspired to get Dr. Scott Atlas ousted from the team.
In a series of emails shared by economic historian Phil Magness on Monday, Fauci spoke with other officials like Birx and then-NIH Director Francis Collins about how to get rid of Atlas and how they could best coordinate their efforts to discredit the &#8220;Great Barrington Declaration&#8221; — which made the case against broad lockdowns and advocated for achieving herd immunity by providing &#8220;focused protection&#8221; for vulnerable populations — and its authors.
The exchange began on October 11, 2020, when Fauci shared an article from the far-left publication &#8220;The Nation&#8221; with Collins. The article, written by epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, framed the ideas of herd immunity and focused protection as &#8220;deadly delusions.&#8221; On October 14, Gonsalves <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084428976047509686">responded</a> to both Collins and Fauci in an email with a subject line that read, &#8220;Thank You For Your Frank Comments on Herd Immunity (Larry Kramer Would Be Proud).&#8221;
Further correspondence from that same day showed Fauci coordinating with Gonsalves, Birx complaining about Atlas, and Fauci bragging to Gonsalves about how he was working to <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084428093234573461">undermine</a> Atlas at the White House.
&#8220;I am trying to get this jerk shut down by working from within the White House,&#8221; Fauci said of Atlas. &#8220;They promise they will handle it and nothing happens. I will keep trying.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m just glad it&#8217;s in the open who has been undermining Tony and I at the White House and who was manipulating the data,&#8221; Birx replied. &#8220;We are pushing back very hard.&#8221;
In another <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084429691016958291">October 14 email</a>, Fauci compared proponents of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) to &#8220;AIDS denialists&#8221; — a move that Magness found ironic since Fauci himself had spread false information about AIDS in the 1980s, saying that it could be transmitted through casual contact.
Gonsalves continued to complain about  GBD advocates in yet another email from <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084427800740536813">October 14</a>, saying, &#8220;Don&#8217;t even get me started. Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya (with who I am part of a grant, BTW), can suck it. I have never been so ashamed of my community of epidemiologists/decision-scientists.&#8221;
On October 15, Fauci emailed Birx directly to relay a <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084427218894135701">conversation</a> he&#8217;d had with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, saying that he&#8217;d been lobbying the White House adviser to help him get rid of Atlas.
&#8220;I really laid it on him but he still does not completely understand how dangerous this guy is. He is still in the realm of &#8216;differences of opinion,'&#8221; Fauci wrote, pressing Birx to follow up and drive the point home with Kushner. &#8220;You have got to speak with Jared and confirm what I said that this guy is killing people. I likened him to the AIDS denialists of the 1980s.&#8221;
The thread concludes with an <a href="https://x.com/PhilWMagness/status/2084425142944387310">email</a> sent by Fauci to Birx on October 16, 2020, in which he tells her what to say since he will not be present at task force meetings that day.
&#8220;Over the past week I have come out very strongly publicly against the &#8216;Great Barrington Declaration.&#8217; Scott Atlas may try to counter this. Please speak out for me,&#8221; Fauci directed, asserting that Atlas was also likely to deny the possibility that COVID-19 could cause residual effects. &#8220;This is all part of his theme that infections do not bother healthy people. Please speak out when he tries to play these things down.&#8221;
Fauci was supposed to testify on Capitol Hill last week, but spent the entirety of his time responding to questions — from queries about the origins of the pandemic to the color of his tie — by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights.

Dr. Fauci Testifies In House On COVID Origins

Emails Show How Fauci Conspired Against White House COVID Adviser

New Fauci Emails Show Him Pressuring Birx, Conspiring Against Atlas

Dr. Deborah Birx

Media

Scott Atlas

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers did his best Dr. Anthony Fauci impression live on ESPN before laying into the former White House COVID-19 adviser. 
The four-time MVP and Super Bowl champion is in the midst of his 22nd training camp, and he joined &#8220;The Pat McAfee Show&#8221; live from Steelers training camp — but attacked Fauci instead of giving an answer to the opening question.
“I’m gonna plead the Fifth. Like that absolute coward Tony Fauci,” Rodgers said on the show. “Absolute coward. Are you kidding me? You got a pardon, and you pleaded over 100 times at the White House? What are you scared of, Tony? I thought you were the science?”
The legendary quarterback&#8217;s tirade came just days after the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases invoked his Fifth Amendment right 111 times in response to questions regarding anything from the COVID-19 pandemic to the color of his tie.
The former Green Bay Packer and New York Jet spent the rest of his time on &#8220;The Pat McAfee Show&#8221; explaining his disgust with both the recent hearing and Fauci&#8217;s diary, published days before the hearing by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).
In addition to Fauci, Rodgers saved some of his ire for ESPN for not covering the Fauci hearing as closely as it had covered Rodgers&#8217; comments on McAfee’s show in 2021 — regarding him not being vaccinated but being “immunized.” After testing positive, he acknowledged he was in the crosshairs of the “woke mob.”
The Steelers signal-caller said that the network would much rather focus on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding — or even the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-times-blows-the-dianna-russini-nfl-scandal-wide-open?author=Gus+Wilson&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=54&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Report+Blows+The+Dianna+Russini+NFL+Scandal+Wide+Open">Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel scandal</a> that broke earlier this offseason — than discuss the hearing.
Rodgers is the second member of the NFL to reference Fauci following the hearing, with Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio opening his press conference by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-nfl-coach-mocks-fauci-for-pleading-the-fifth">pleading the Fifth</a> last Thursday.
Despite multiple claims that ESPN was staying quiet over Fauci’s infamous hearing, Rodgers did “give flowers” to McAfee’s colleague Stephen A. Smith for apologizing to NBA star Kyrie Irving after initially criticizing Irving about his stance on the COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
McAfee and the rest of the members of the show made sure to give kudos to Rodgers for not backing down throughout the entire pandemic on his stance.
“I feel great about it. I told you I’ll be on the right side of history,” he said.

AFC Wild Card Playoffs: Houston Texans v Pittsburgh Steelers

Aaron Rodgers Goes Scorched Earth On Anthony Fauci

Dr. Fauci

Pat McAfee

Now that we have seen the communications and diary of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and we know that his private thoughts on COVID were very different than his public statements, it’s time to ask the question: Will the real Anthony Fauci please stand up? 
On July 29, 2026, Fauci stood in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) and swore an oath to tell the truth. It was his chance to set the record straight, to tell us what he actually believes.
But that oath was not fulfilled, and that opportunity was wasted.
Not because he lied to Congress that morning but, rather, because he would not answer a single question posed to him. He refused to give the American people even one answer regarding the origins of COVID; the vaccines he forced upon them; the draconian lockdowns he championed; or the enormous human cost of his actions. He refused to answer the committee or the American people, invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times.
Instead of cooperation, we are left with contradictions.
First, Fauci repeatedly told the public that COVID came from a wet market. But his diary shows that he knew as early as January 26, 2020, that “the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market.” This is a stunning lie. But it is only the first of many.
He told Congress that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” Yet Fauci’s own diary entry of February 1, 2020, recounts that 10 of 12 experts on his call believed accidental release was the most likely source of COVID, and that it was possible “given the fact that Dr. Zheng-Li Shi at the University of Wuhan has been working for years in GOF in coronaviruses.” He continued, “We could not let this go.”
In 2024, when asked by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic if he had ever deleted documents, he definitively responded, “No.” But my investigation has revealed that he made a habit of it. Fauci told colleagues numerous times to delete their exchanges with him, once telling one of his deputies to “delete this e-mail and [then] delete it from the deleted file.” His assistant once alerted him that she “deleted a ton of [his] emails this morning.” In exchanges regarding the WHO’s response to COVID origins, and in response to my own social media posts questioning his policies, Fauci once again asked colleagues to “please delete this e-mail after you read it.”
Dr. Fauci told that same House subcommittee in a transcribed interview that he “didn’t make a decision to close the schools.” He told the New York Times, “Show me a school that I shut down. Never. I never did.” But his diary betrays these statements. On May 15, 2020, he wrote that he “spoke with Bill de Blasio&#8230; and convinced him based on what I was saying publicly and my conversations tonight to close the NYC schools.” The very next day, he wrote that Governor Gavin Newsom’s Chief of Staff had relayed in a phone call “that based on my TV appearances today and yesterday, the Governor has decided to close the schools in California as well as the bars and restaurants.”
As the 2020 holidays approached, Fauci implored Americans to keep their holiday gatherings “as small as you possibly can” and that you “may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering.” Yet on October 23 of that same year, Fauci wrote in his diary about a dinner in his home “with Jake and Jennifer Tapper.”
Publicly, Fauci stood behind the White House podium and mourned the incredible human loss of the pandemic, while privately stroking his own ego over the attention he received. In the top line of his diary, he would keep tally of the COVID deaths each day. On April 20, 2020, when he listed the deaths of 3,000 parents, friends, and colleagues, he spent the entire entry gushing over the treatment he was receiving from the media and celebrities like Kim Kardashian.
Early in the pandemic, Fauci told the public that masks weren’t necessary to stop the spread of COVID and that they wouldn’t protect anyone, only to later insist on their importance. Fauci himself called this messaging “well meant,” a deception intended to save masks for health workers. But his manipulation of the public, from the very start of the pandemic, also revealed Fauci’s duplicity.
In yet another media profile — this one with Time Magazine in 2021 — Fauci said the COVID pandemic “confirmed what I learned with other outbreaks […] you have to be humble and modest enough to know that you’re learning as you go along.”
If only he had followed his own advice. Instead, he may be reminded of a diary entry from October 2001, in which Fauci wrote: “I believe that there will be hell to pay when the American public realizes that they have not been dealt with in a totally open manner.”  
The American people want answers on the COVID pandemic. This week, Anthony Fauci was given the opportunity to address the American public openly.
He pleaded the Fifth Amendment 111 times.
***
U.S. Senator Rand Paul, M.D., (R-KY) is one of the nation’s leading advocates for liberty. Senator Paul serves as the chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He has represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate since 2011. He and his wife, Kelley, live in Bowling Green and are the parents of three sons.

Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci Testifies Senate Committee On Homeland Affairs

Rand Paul: Will The Real Anthony Fauci Please Stand Up?

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid into CNN anchor Dana Bash during a Sunday morning interview, arguing that her network — and media across the board — had been complicit in efforts to silence anyone who raised questions about the COVID-19 pandemic orthodoxy.
Kennedy began by pointing out just how quickly Constitutional rights had been trampled as people who spoke out or refused the COVID-19 vaccines faced cancellation, getting fired from their jobs, or worse — and Bash immediately tried to move the conversation in a different direction.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This was a long-overdue moment on CNN.
RFK Jr. called out the network on air for helping to silence dissent during COVID.
Dana Bash was getting visibly irritated, after she repeatedly tried to move the conversation away from censorship.
Then he aimed his fire at Dana Bash… <a href="https://t.co/yHmIxjgz25">pic.twitter.com/yHmIxjgz25</a>
— Overton (@overton_news) <a href="https://x.com/overton_news/status/2083918836999332300?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;We need to protect our constitutional rights. That is the primary obligation in our country,” Kennedy began.
&#8220;What does that mean?&#8221; Bash asked.
&#8220;Well, during COVID, we completely dismantled our constitutional rights. We began censoring people in violation of the First Amendment,&#8221; he explained, but Bash interrupted.
&#8220;You’re saying what not to do, I’m asking what to do,&#8221; she protested.
Kennedy pushed back: &#8220;Well, that’s something to do. That is the number one priority: we protect the Constitution.&#8221;
&#8220;Forgive me, but you’re talking about rights and I’m asking about a potential public health crisis that is coming. But I do want to … let’s …&#8221; Bash tried to redirect him.
&#8220;And one of the mistakes we made last time was suppressing those rights. So people weren’t being heard. Doctors who were saying, ‘You’re doing it wrong,’ were being marginalized and vilified,&#8221; Kennedy made it clear that he was not going to be deterred.
Bash tried once more, saying, &#8220;Again, I really want to move on …”
&#8220;Yeah, of course you want to move on because you were part of the problem!&#8221; Kennedy shot back.
&#8220;No! I wasn’t part of the problem!&#8221; Bash objected.
&#8220;There was absolute press malpractice. Your job is to have a fierce skepticism toward authority, and you weren’t doing that,&#8221; Kennedy continued, arguing that many in media were to blame for doing the same. &#8220;You were beating up on people who were dissenting!&#8221;

HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr Testifies At Senate Finance Hearing

RFK Jr. Unloads On CNN Anchor Over COVID: ‘You Were Part Of The Problem!’

RFK Jr. Unloads On CNN Anchor Over COVID: 'You Were Part Of The Problem!'

Dr. Ashish Jha the former White House COVID 19 Response Coordinator now <a href="https://x.com/joshrogin/status/2083955507455279595?s=46">says</a> the origin of the coronavirus pandemic was likely a lab leak from Wuhan than a natural outbreak.
Jha made the comments recently and described how his thinking has shifted. “This is going to surprise some people,” he said. “When I went into the White House, my view was this was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak. Based on information I’ve learned and based on information I’ve seen, I have come to conclude it is more likely to have been a lab leak … We still need transparency and accountability on this.”
Jha was very wary of the limits of what is known. He said that no one in the United States could know for sure, and that the only people who do know for sure are the officials in China who have been less than forthcoming with the information. Transparency and accountability remain necessary, he repeated.
The comments emerge as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-hero-complex-that-held-america-hostage?author=Ben+Shapiro&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Hero+Complex+That+Held+America+Hostage">details</a> from Anthony Fauci&#8217;s personal diary have drawn attention. Those private writings, released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), include an entry from as early as January 26, 2020, in which Fauci recorded that the virus almost certainly did not come from a wet market — a theory floated early on in the pandemic. The diary shows Fauci privately treated a laboratory connection as the more plausible explanation, despite his public insistence on a natural origin.
Jha presented his conclusion as his current best judgment after reviewing the information available to him. He did not claim final proof. The gap between early public emphasis on a natural spillover and the private assessments now coming to light keeps attention on how the origins question was handled even from the very beginning.
Both Jha&#8217;s comments and the diary entries underline the same basic problem: without fuller access to data and records from the relevant laboratories and early outbreak sites in Wuhan definitive answers stay incomplete.
The diary entries from Fauci show that private doubts about the wet market explanation existed at high levels from the first weeks of 2020. Jha has now put a similar assessment on the public record years later. Full answers still depend on greater transparency from the relevant officials in China.

Fauci Pleads The Fifth Amendment In Senate Covid Hearing

Biden COVID Czar Finally Admits Virus Came From Chinese Lab

Ashish Jha

Fauci hearing

White House

Philadelphia Eagles Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio prompted laughter at his Thursday morning press conference, taking a jab at former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Fangio opened his press conference with a reference to Fauci&#8217;s grilling on Capitol Hill one day prior — during which the former White House official had repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights — saying that maybe he shouldn&#8217;t have to answer any questions either.
&#8220;Vic, what&#8217;s the plan at safety?&#8221; one reporter asked. &#8220;Is that Marcus&#8217; [Epps] job to lose?&#8221;
&#8220;I’m gonna be like Fauci and just take the Fifth Amendment on all questions,&#8221; Fangio laughed, as did several around the room. &#8220;Did you guys see that? Oh my God.&#8221;
After a brief pause, Fangio took on a slightly more serious tone and asked, &#8220;What was the question?&#8221;
The room immediately erupted in laughter again as one reporter, feigning outrage, jokingly accused Fangio of having the Fauci jab &#8220;lined up&#8221; as his first response regardless of the question.
Throughout Wednesday&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fauci-faces-congress-as-explosive-diaries-take-center-stage?author=DailyWire%2B&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=27&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=After+Fauci+Pleads+The+Fifth%2C+Rand+Paul+Makes+Contempt+Move">hearing</a>, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right in response to every direct question, whether it was a substantive question about the draconian policies he&#8217;d foisted on Americans during the COVID pandemic or a simple question about the color of his tie or the rights provided under the Fifth Amendment.
At one point, under direct questioning from Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH), Fauci even refused to turn and face the group of people in the gallery who said they had faced ridicule, cancellation, firings, and worse for daring to question the accepted orthodoxy — largely dictated by Fauci himself — throughout the pandemic.

NFL: SEP 21 Rams at Eagles

WATCH: NFL Coach Mocks Fauci For Pleading The Fifth

NFL Coach Mocks Fauci For Pleading Fifth Amendment

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