“I have nothing to hide and I can defend everything I’ve done, so that doesn’t faze me or bother me,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins regarding Republican plans to investigate him. “My decision of stepping down goes back well over a year.”
Fauci, who will turn 82 on Dec. 24, is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. He announced this week that he would step down from both positions in December to embark on the “next phase” of this career.
“I don’t have to tell you this, Dr. Fauci, that Republicans really…to them, you are a symbol of the restrictions that came along with COVID-19,” said Collins during the interview Tuesday.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Five Thirty Eight midterm elections projections show that the GOP is expected to take control over the House of Representatives in November. With this control, they could carry out investigations. Currently, the Democrat-controlled House is investigating the 2021 Capitol riot via the Select Committee.
“A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Fauci in a tweet Monday.
“They promise to investigate you,” Collins told Fauci. “Did that have any role in your departure?”
“None at all Kaitlan, none at all,” he said. “Not even a slight amount.”
Fauci explained that he had actually intended to step down at the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration in early 2021.
“But, when President Biden was elected, one of the first things he did was to ask me to join and be his chief medical advisor, which I took as a great honor, and I enthusiastically accepted,” Fauci said. “I thought that was going to last about a year, that we would be having COVID behind us after a year. But, obviously, painfully so, that’s not the case.”
In May 2021, four months after Biden took office, around 57% of adults in the U.S. had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, more than 67% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and booster shots are available, as well as treatments such as the Paxlovid pill.
“I think we’re in a relatively good place with regards to COVID if we utilize and implement the interventions that we have,” Fauci told Collins.
He has also said that he would leave his position if Trump was reelected. The former president has hinted that he intends to run again.
Fauci said he “just felt it was the right time,” to step down from his posts since he is still healthy, passionate and energetic about his work. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 himself this summer.
When asked if he would testify for Republicans, Fauci said “sure, I certainly would consider that,” adding that he believes in government oversight.
However, he said what has happened up until now is “more of a character assassination” and that he would agree to “dignified oversight” instead.
Related
Related
