Over the last year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of Republicans and rightwing media figures, on the hunt for some sort of deflection away from Donald Trump’s total mismanagement of the crisis, have decided that Dr. Anthony Fauci is their best shot at a scapegoat.
Usually, Rand Paul can be trusted to be the loudest and most obnoxious Fauci opponent in Congress, but he’s been getting some competition recently. Marjorie Taylor Greene—who was stripped of her committee assignments and is apparently bored and desperate to seem relevant—has introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at Dr. Fauci, or as she so maturely called him in a press release “Dr. Always Wrong.”
The first is the “Fire Fauci Act,” which would “reduce Dr. Fauci’s salary to $0 until a new NIAID administrator is confirmed by the Senate,” even though that is not a position that currently requires Senate confirmation.
The second bill is called the “We Will Not Comply Act.” Among other things, it would prohibit businesses from “discriminating” against people based on their vaccination status or “mask compliance,” meaning customers could sue businesses for trying to make them wear masks.
She introduced both of these bills on April 1st, although unfortunately, they do not appear to be jokes.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is proposing an bill to lower Dr. Anthony Fauci’s salary to $0 called the Fire Fauci Act, which would also bar businesses from refusing service to people who are unvaccinated. pic.twitter.com/AeGlFbeLSR
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) April 1, 2021
Then on Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, “Paging Dr. Fauci: You need to go to the southern border and witness in person the biggest super spreader event in the nation – President [Biden’s] immigration policies.”
“Dr. Fauci, does COVID-science justify President Biden’s handling of migrants from Central America?” he continued in his lengthy thread. “If you are worried about the spread of COVID, you should be gravely concerned about what is happening at our southern border. There is no end in sight on this super-spreader event until these policies are changed.”
I don’t know what Graham thinks looping Fauci into a discussion about immigration is supposed to accomplish and apparently, neither does Fauci. In an interview with Fox News, he said that these sorts of comments from Republicans are “a little bizarre.”
“Lindsey Graham, who I like — he’s a good person, I’ve dealt with him very, very well over the years — [is] equating me with things that have to do with the border. I have nothing to do with the border,” Fauci told host Neil Cavuto on Friday.
“Obviously, it is a very difficult situation at the border. We all know that. The administration is trying as best as they can to alleviate that situation,” he said. “Having me down at the border. That’s really not what I do. You know what I do, I develop vaccines, I develop countermeasures.”
Fauci recognizes that conservatives have turned him into a “symbol,” representing “anything they don’t like” when it comes to the COVID-19 response.
Fauci also didn’t hold back in pointing out that the network he was currently appearing on is also engaging in this bizarre scapegoating.
“Peter Navarro saying I created the virus,” Fauci said when asked his thoughts on these kinds of statements made by Navarro and others recently. “Think about that. Neil, isn’t that a little weird? I mean, come on.”
Last week, ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro launched into a truly unhinged rant attacking Fauci, calling him a “sociopath and a liar.”
Navarro had been asked his opinion on a comment Fauci recently made on CNN, calling his and his team’s decision to go “all-out” developing a vaccine, “the best decision that I’ve ever made with regard to an intervention as director of the institute.”
Fox News and other right-wing outlets labeled that statement as Fauci “taking credit” for the vaccine.
Navarro said on-air, “He had nothing to do with the vaccine. The father of the vaccine is Donald J. Trump.”
“What is Fauci the father of? Fauci is the father of the actual virus. … The virus came from a Wuhan lab, basically we had Fauci funding that lab with American taxpayer dollars,” he said in his fact-free rant above a chyron reading “Fauci claims credit for COVID-19 vaccines.”
Peter Navarro calls COVID-19 the “Fauci Virus” calling Fauci “the father of” the virus and accusing him of allowing China and the People’s Liberation Army to “genetically engineer” COVID-19.
Host Rachel Campos-Duffy lets it slide. pic.twitter.com/5pINTVc8Pc
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) March 30, 2021
Fauci made it clear he doesn’t have time for any of this.
“I don’t know the reason for the animus but quite frankly, Neil, I am so busy trying to do some important things to preserve the health and the safety of the American people that I can’t be bothered with getting distracted with these people that are doing these ad hominems again,” he said.
“It really doesn’t bother me, you brought it up,” he told Cavuto. “It’s one of those things that if they want to do it, let them do it, I have more important things to worry about than that.
(image: screencap)
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