Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blasted “dangerous bureaucrat” NIH Director Dr. Anthony Fauci for claiming that he “represent[s] the science” on Monday’s “Hannity.”
“I gotta admit, Sean, I was laughing … It is [his] delusions of grandeur that you cannot criticize him. And it was very striking,” Cruz said.
Fauci was interviewed by Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday where he was asked about the criticism leveled against him regarding his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the interview, Fauci said, “Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this. So if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there’s a person there. There’s a face, there’s a voice you can recognize, you see him on television. So it’s easy to criticize.”
FAUCI WOULD ‘NOT BE SURPRISED’ IF OMICRON IS ALREADY IN US, PREDICTS IT WILL GO ‘ALL OVER’
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“They’re really criticizing science because I represent science – that’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I’m not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever. And if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave. And that’s what I worry about,” Fauci continued.
Cruz called Fauci the “most dangerous bureaucrat” in American history.
“Dr. Fauci, I think, is the most dangerous bureaucrat in the history of the country … he’s been dishonest, he’s been political, he’s been partisan, and the American people know it,” Cruz continued.
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Cruz also criticized Brennan for dropping the ball “and not following up” on Fauci’s claims.
“Instead of asking him the simple question: ‘You stated that we don’t fund gain of function research, the NIH stated. We do fund gain of function research. They can’t both be true. And if you lied to Congress, it’s a felony. She didn’t press him on that,” Cruz said. “And the reason this matters is there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the U.S. government participated in funding research modifying coronaviruses that could well have led to COVID 19. And if that’s true, that is stunning and indefensible.”