Anthony Fauci, who led much of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said on Saturday that calls from the GOP to prosecute him over the handling of the outbreak are an example of “craziness.”
“There’s no response to that craziness,” Fauci said on CNN.
“I mean, prosecute me for what? What are they talking about? I mean, I wish I could figure out what the heck they were talking about. I think they’re just going off the deep end,” the infectious disease expert said. “It doesn’t make any sense to say something like that and it actually is irresponsible.”
Fauci, who worked for the government in the health-care space for decades and under seven presidents, became the target of intense scrutiny as the COVID-19 pandemic became politicized, and has been hit with calls from some GOP lawmakers for him to be investigated.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk in December took to the platform to say “my pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” He also shared a meme edited to depict Fauci telling President Biden, “just one more lockdown, my king.”
Musk’s Tweet prompted the White House to speak out condemning the “personal attacks” against Fauci that press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called “divorced from reality.”
Fauci has long dismissed the attacks against him and shrugged Musk’s comment off — though he’s underscored that the rhetoric has sparked death threats and impacted his family.
“Every time somebody gets up and spouts some nonsense that’s misinformation, disinformation and outright lies, somebody somewhere decides they want to do harm to me and/or my family,” Fauci said on CNN.
“So that’s the part about it that is really unfortunate. The rest of it is just insanity, the things they’re saying. But it does have a negative effect when people take it seriously and take it out on you and your family. Which is the reason why I still have to have protection, which is really unfortunate,” he said.