"If anybody's lying here, Senator, it is you."
Those were Dr. Fauci's words in his latest clash with Sen. Rand Paul about the coronavirus crisis. And it's not the first time they've butted heads ...
Those were Dr. Fauci's words in his latest clash with Sen. Rand Paul about the coronavirus crisis. And it's not the first time they've butted heads ...
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00:00Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially.
00:06You do not know what you are talking about.
00:09There will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.
00:13I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating.
00:22Viruses that in nature only infect animals were manipulated in the Wuhan lab
00:28to gain the function of infecting humans.
00:31Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement?
00:36Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement.
00:43You're dancing around this because you're trying to obscure responsibility
00:47for 4 million people dying around the world from a pandemic.
00:50I want everyone to understand that if you look at those viruses,
00:54those viruses are molecularly impossible to result in SARS-CoV-2.
01:00No one's saying they are. No one's saying those viruses are gain-of-function viruses
01:02because they were animal viruses that became more transmissible in humans, and you funded it.
01:07You won't admit the truth.
01:09Senator Paul, your time has expired, and I will allow witnesses who come before this committee to respond.
01:15And you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals?
01:22I totally resent that. And if anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.
01:28You're telling everybody to wear a mask, whether they've had an infection or a vaccine.
01:32What I'm saying is they have immunity, and everybody agrees they have immunity.
01:35What studies do you have that people who have had the vaccine or have had the infection are spreading the infection?
01:41If we're not spreading the infection, isn't it just theater?
01:44No, it's not.
01:45You've had the vaccine, and you're wearing two masks. Isn't that theater?
01:48No, that's not. Here we go again with the theater.
01:50Please, sir, I would like to be able to do this because this happens with Senator Rand all the time.
01:55You were not listening to what the director of the CDC said.
01:59As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don't think you're the end-all.
02:03I don't think you're the one person that gets to make a decision.
02:06We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there's not going to be a surge
02:10and that we can safely open the economy, and the facts will bear this out.
02:13I have never made myself out to be the end-all and only voice in this.
02:17I'm a scientist, a physician, and a public health official.
02:20I give advice according to the best scientific evidence.
02:24There are a number of other people who come into that and give advice
02:28that are more related to the things that you spoke about,
02:31about the need to get the country back open again and economically.
02:35I don't give advice about economic things.
02:38I don't give advice about anything other than public health.
02:41All I hear, Dr. Fauci, is we can't do this, we can't do that, we can't play baseball.
02:46Well, even that's not based on the science.
02:48I mean, flu season peaks in February.
02:50We don't know that COVID's going to be like the flu season.
02:53It might, but we don't know that.
02:55But we wouldn't ban school in October.
02:58I am completely unqualified to tell you whether you can play a sport or not.
03:03The only thing that I can do is, to the best of my ability,
03:06give you the facts and the evidence associated with what I know about this outbreak.
03:12New York had the highest death rate in the world.
03:14How could we possibly be jumping up and down and saying,
03:16Oh, Governor Cuomo did a great job.
03:19He had the worst death rate in the world.
03:21No, you misconstrued that, Senator, and you've done that repetitively in the past.
03:26They got hit very badly.
03:28They've made some mistakes.
03:30Right now, if you look at what's going on right now,
03:34the things that are going on in New York to get their test positivity 1% or less
03:40is because they are looking at the guidelines that we have put together from the task force
03:46of the four or five things of masks, social distancing, outdoors more than indoors,
03:52avoiding crowds and washing hands.
03:55Or they've developed enough community immunity that they're no longer having the pandemic
04:00because they have enough immunity in New York City to actually stop it.
04:03I challenge that, Senator.
04:05I'm afraid.
04:06Please, sir, I would like to be able to do this because this happens with Senator Rand all the time.
04:11You were not listening to what the director of the CDC said that in New York, it's about 22%.
04:18If you believe 22% is herd immunity, I believe you're alone in that.