Fauci Rips Trump-Appointed Judge’s Mask Order, Mocks Her ‘Unsound’ Rationale
Dr. Anthony Fauci ripped a decision by Trump-appointed federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle striking down a 15-day extension to a travel mask rule.
Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to the President, was CNN+ host Kasie Hunt’s guest on the latest episode of the CNN+ series The Source.
During that interview, Hunt asked Fauci about Mizelle’s ruling, which the Department of Justice is now appealing. Fauci ripped the decision, mocked the legal rationale, and warned of the danger in setting such a precedent:
DR. FAUCI: I was both surprised and disappointed because those types of things really are the purview of the CDC, this is a public health issue. And for a court to come in, and if you look at the rationale for that, it really is not particularly firm. And we are concerned about that, about courts getting involved in things that are unequivocally public health decision. I mean, this is a CDC issue, which, no, it should not have been a court issue. So we’re hoping that the inevitable increase in cases which we’re seeing are not going to be associated with an increase in hospitalizations. So all of these dynamic things going on at the same time, it was perfectly logical for the CDC to say, wait a minute, we were planning on ending this mandate on a certain date. Let’s wait a period of time until May 3rd, which was a very sound public health decision. So for a court to come in and interfere in that is really unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because it’s against public health principles, number one. And number two is because that’s no place for the courts to do that. This is a CDC decision, and that’s very bad precedent. When you have courts making a decision. And looking at what the basis of the decision was, it was not sound.
MS. HUNT: Are you concerned that it will strip power away from the CDC in a future pandemic?
DR. FAUCI: Well, that’s the reason why, after a lot of deliberation, the CDC has decided that they would go ahead and ask the DOJ to to challenge that, and which is what the DOJ is doing right now.
MS. HUNT: Because politically, that’s tough for the administration.
DR. FAUCI: Well, yeah, of course it is, but I think it’s a matter of principle. We want to be guided by the CDC recommendations, not by the recommendation of an individual judge.
Watch above via CNN+.
