Fox News host Neil Cavuto accuses the right of vilifying Dr. Fauci like 'he was Lex Luthor'
On Your World With Neil Cavuto Tuesday, Cavuto came to the defense of Dr. Anthony Fauci following a contentious Senate hearing in which Republican Sen. Rand Paul accused the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of lying to Congress about the origins of COVID-19. This came with the implication that a grant given by the National Institutes of Health to the Wuhan lab in China where some believe COVID-19 originated contributed to the creation of the virus.
“Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you’re talking about,” Fauci said, later adding, “And if anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.”
Fauci tried explaining multiple times that it is “molecularly impossible” for the viruses used in the experiments in which the NIH funding was involved to result in the coronavirus, but was interrupted by Paul each time.
Though Fauci is constantly the target of attacks by right-wing media, including many on Fox News, Cavuto came to his defense. Cavuto believes the animus comes from the fact that Fauci was one of the few in the Trump administration who dared to publicly contradict the former president on the coronavirus.
“He has been vilified to the point that you’d think he was Lex Luthor, and I don’t know how productive that is,” Cavuto said. “What might have been missed, and the source of all of this, I get that. But to make him the target of attacks, I think that a lot of this has to go back to his departure from the former president, Donald Trump, at the time. But whatever is behind it, I don’t see it being constructive.”
Cavuto wasn’t alone. Frequent Fox News medical contributor Dr. Bob Lahita joined in the defense of Fauci.
“He’s been the director of the NIAID for years and years and years. I used to work at the NIH reviewing grants, and I remember Dr. Fauci’s guidance. So he’s been around since Moses parted the Red Sea, and he’s a very ethical, prudent individual,” Lahita said, later adding, “I think it’s unfortunate that we have to attack an individual who has such an important role in our society.” “All right. Yeah, it’s just odd to me,” Cavuto replied. “But at his core he’s a good man, a good doctor. We all got to just step back, take the chill down.”
Your World With Neil Cavuto airs weeknights at 4 p.m. on Fox News Channel.
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