WATCH: Clearly Pissed Dr. Fauci Reacts To ‘Cesspool’ of Elon Musk Attacks — By Insisting He Won’t React

Retiring infectious disease honcho Dr. Anthony Fauci was clearly perturbed as he responded to CNN’s David Axelrod about Elon Musk’s recent attacks.

Musk has recently posted several false or misleading attacks on Fauci that drew fire from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. In an upcoming edition of The Axe Files, the host asked Fauci about one of the attacks.

AXELROD: So, speaking of Musk, what did you think about that tweet this morning?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I don’t respond to him. I don’t pay any attention to him because that’s merely a distraction. And if you get drawn into that, and I have to be honest, that cesspool of interaction, it’s — there’s no value added to that, David. It doesn’t help anything.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s OutFront, anchor Erin Burnett asked Axelrod to elaborate on the exchange, and Axelrod confirmed that Fauci had “pretty strong feelings” about the effects of social media attacks:

BURNETT: So, David, when you talk to Dr. Fauci and he talks about that cesspool of interaction —

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.

BURNETT: — pretty remarkable comment referring to Twitter, what else did Fauci tell you in response to Musk?

AXELROD: Well, he clearly was eager, as he said, not to engage with Musk directly. But he did say, Erin, and it was really interesting, reflecting on his over half century of work that this has been a half century of extraordinary progress in science, in public health. But when it came to the political discourse, he said there’s been an erosion. And he lays a lot of it on social media.

And, of course, he’s been in the middle of this. He’s been — he was targeted all throughout the pandemic for the decisions that he advised and the advice he was giving to policymakers about how he should proceed to deal with that pandemic, and to the point where he had significant security threats that required round-the-clock security, which he says in his podcast that is going to have to continue after he leaves his post at the end of this month.

So, you know, he has pretty strong feelings about the erosion of our public discourse and the role social media has played in it.

Watch above via CNN’s OutFront.