Fauci v. Paul series continues: Fauci says Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking about ‘and I want to say that officially’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday escalated his ongoing feud with the nation’s top infectious diseases doctor Anthony Fauci about the role the National Institutes of Health (NIH) played in funding controversial research in Wuhan, China.

The two traded barbs during a tense exchange, triggering a shouting match in which Fauci accused Paul of lying in order to further his agenda.

During a Senate Health Committee hearing about the federal COVID-19 response, Paul said the NIH funded illegal gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which created a highly dangerous and transmissible virus able to infect humans. Gain-of-function is a controversial method where researchers make a pathogen more infectious, often to develop more effective treatments and vaccines.

It’s an unsubstantiated accusation Paul has made before, and one Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has denied.

It’s not unusual for conservative Republicans and allies of former President Trump to clash with Fauci during hearings; Paul has done so on numerous occasions, as has Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Paul’s accusations: But on Tuesday, Paul stepped up his fight, implying that Fauci had lied to Congress, and that he was fully aware of what the Wuhan lab was doing with grant money that came from NIH.

He also suggested that Fauci and the NIH could be partly responsible for the pandemic and the deaths of 4 million people worldwide.

Fauci responds: “You are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals. I totally resent that,” Fauci said. “And if anybody is lying here senator, it is you,” he added, pointing a finger at Paul.