Anthony Fauci Unleashes the Fury of Conservative America

Dr. Anthony Fauci's recent interview with CBS's Face the Nation has been met with anger and strong criticism by several figures in conservative circles after he said he represents science.

Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), offered his own criticism of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) during his Sunday interview, laughing off Cruz's call for him to be prosecuted for lying to Congress.

The Republican senator responded to Fauci's remarks on Fox News on Monday and he was not alone in his harsh assessment of the infectious diseases expert's comments.

Cruz told Fox News' Sean Hannity that Fauci was "the most dangerous bureaucrat in the history of the country."

He said Fauci had talked "about hurting science but I don't think anyone has hurt science, has hurt the credibility of the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], has hurt the credibility of doctors more than Dr. Fauci because throughout this pandemic, he's been dishonest, he's been political, he's been partisan."

Cruz went on to reiterate his accusation that Fauci had lied to Congress over National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for gain-of-function research in a lab in Wuhan, China and cited U.S. law under which those who lie to Congress can be prosecuted.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, gain-of-function research is "research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease." It is generally intended to better study or understand certain diseases.

Fauci has denied lying to Congress and laughed off the idea he could face prosecution on Sunday. He has also denied that the NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Coronavirus is thought to have originated from the Chinese city, and some have said that it may have leaked from a lab in the vicinity.

"I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted? What happened on January 6 senator?" Fauci said, responding to a question about Cruz's push for prosecution.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who has frequently clashed with Fauci, shared a clip of the CBS interview on Twitter on Sunday where the NIAID director said "I represent science" while responding to his critics.

"The absolute hubris of someone claiming THEY represent science," Paul said. "It's astounding and alarming that a public health bureaucrat would even think to claim such a thing, especially one who has worked so hard to ignore the science of natural immunity."

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) accused Fauci of being partisan during an interview with Fox News' The Ingraham Angle on Monday.

"It's just another example of the incompetence of the Biden administration. They think Tony Fauci remains a credible and impartial messenger about the Wuhan coronavirus," Cotton said.

"You saw this weekend, he went out and became an open partisan—attacking a sitting United States senator who is democratically elected by the people, as are the other 99 senators—as a—nothing but a bureaucrat, who works for those people who democratically elected 100 senators, attacking him in a partisan way," he said.

"This is not Tony Fauci changing or turning over a new leaf; this is who he has been from the very beginning," Cotton added.

The senator also accused Fauci of misleading Congress on funding for gain-of-function research.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson compared Fauci to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on Monday. Mussolini ruled his country from 1922 to 1943 and was allied with Adolf Hitler during World War II.

"If you haven't checked in on Tony Fauci lately, you may be a little surprised to discover what he's become," Carlson told viewers.

"If you tune in a couple years ago you may recall Fauci as a conventional public health official. He wore button-down shirts, he gave careful, precise answers that suggested deep medical knowledge. No more," Carlson went on.

"After two years of being nonstop media adulation, Tony Fauci has morphed into an even shorter version of Benito Mussolini," he said.

Lara Logan, who hosts a show on Fox News' streaming platform Fox Nation, made an explicit reference to the Nazi regime during an appearance on the network's Primetime on Monday.

She compared Fauci to Josef Mengele, a notorious Nazi doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp who performed unethical and deadly experiments on prisoners, many of which amounted to torture. He was known as the Angel of Death and was never brought to justice.

"What you see on Dr. Fauci, this is what people say to me, that he doesn't represent science to them," Logan said.

"He represents Josef Mengele. Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the Second World War and in the concentration camps," she said.