CNBC reports:
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul traded barbs in a heated exchange at a Senate hearing Tuesday over whether the National Institutes of Health funded controversial research Paul claims could have contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Paul grilled Fauci about an NIH funded study that he says qualifies as gain-of-function research, the process of altering a pathogen to make it more transmissible in order to better predict emerging diseases.
Fauci previously denied in previous Senate testimony that the NIH has directly funded the research at a lab in Wuhan, China that has come under intense scrutiny as a possible source of the virus.
The Insider reports:
“Senator Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you’re talking about,” Fauci said to Paul when the Kentucky Republican suggested that the US’s top infectious disease expert had been dishonest about whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.
Paul effectively accused Fauci of lying to Congress about research in China on coronaviruses. “I totally resent the lie you are now propagating, senator,” Fauci went on to say to Paul. “Those viruses are molecularly impossible to result in SARS-CoV-2 … You are implying what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals. If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.”
RAND PAUL: Knowing it’s a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement where you said the NIH never funded gain of function research in Wuhan?
FAUCI: I’ve never lied before Congress & I don’t retract that statement … you don’t know what you’re talking about pic.twitter.com/UtWoO2KHsb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 20, 2021
Fauci has had it with Rand Paul’s posturing. And I’m so here for it. https://t.co/xhRqqp7IkK
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) July 20, 2021
Damn pic.twitter.com/HNqBeUoehw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 20, 2021
Fauci is 80 and he, too, beat up Rand Paul.
— Kim Masters (@kimmasters) July 20, 2021