Fauci Slams ‘Inappropriate, Distorted, Misleading and Misrepresented Attacks’ on Him by Republicans

On Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined Rachel Maddow for an extensive interview, and was asked by the MSNBC host about the attacks that have been launched against him by right-wing media. Fauci has long said he believes the Covid-19 virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, three employees at a lab in Wuhan, China were hospitalized in November 2019 for unspecified reasons. The revelation has breathed new life into theories that Covid-19 originated in a lab.

At one point, Maddow asked Fauci:

One of the reasons that there is this new uproar on the right, again – I will be honest in saying I don’t totally understand it – but there’s a real focus on what the origin story is for where Covid-19 came from. And there are these conspiracy theories that, rather than being a virus that crossed from animals into humans like other viruses have, that there was some, you know, purposely diabolically created virus that was purposely generated in a lab to be unleashed on the world as a bioweapon. And that seems to be some of what’s going on on the right right now in the targeting of you. But scientifically speaking, is it a key scientific factor in coming up with cures, in coming up with vaccines, in coming up with a final sort of solution to Covid-19, to know where it came from, to understand the origins of the virus?

Fauci replied in part:

You know, there’s this concern, is it a natural evolution, or is it something that happen out of a lab, an accident or what have you. It is important to understand that. But it is being approached now in a very vehement way, in a very distorted way, I believe, by attacking me. I think the question is extremely legitimate. You should want to know how this happened so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. But what’s happened in the middle of all of that, I’ve become the object of extraordinary – I believe – completely inappropriate, distorted, misleading, and misrepresented attacks which, you know, it is what it is, but it’s happening, and that’s unfortunate.

Watch above via MSNBC.