Psaki Defends Fauci on Wuhan Lab Funding

CLAY: Dr. Fauci, I think it’s fair to say, is a dictator — “the petty, lab coat tyrant” as you call him.

BUCK: Also known as “the science,” Clay. He’s “the science.”

CLAY: He’s doing, I think, right now… You would think, if the media were doing its job they’d be questioning him about all of these Intercept reports dealing with the gain-of-function research. He’s doing an interview right now with the New York Times. I bet they don’t even ask him about it. It’s like a live chat interview or whatever.

But Jen Psaki got asked about it in the White House press briefing yesterday. If you didn’t hear this, most of the questions she gets are softballs, but this one was pretty detailed. Again, if you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to just type in “Fauci…” We’ll see whether or not Google allows you to find it.

Type in “Fauci Intercept” on Google and read the emails that further demonstrate that our tax dollars were going for gain-of-function research in Wuhan where the covid virus came from. And many people in the media are not paying attention to it. But Jen Psaki was actually asked about it yesterday. Here’s what it sounded like.

ROBINSON: …the story about Dr. Fauci yesterday in the Intercept, the documents released that show he was untruthful?

PSAKI: (long silence)

BUCK: Oh, she runs right by it. That was Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson, who is a —

CLAY: Good job.

BUCK: — fierce, fierce advocate for the truth and holding this administration accountable.

CLAY: Well, good job by asking the question. And no surprise that Psaki was trying to run out without answering it. But you’ve seen a lot of news. I saw Josh Hawley among other senators that have demanded that Fauci resign and/or be removed from his position. And honestly, if we had an honest media and if we had an honest political class, Fauci wouldn’t be employed anymore, and also we’d have a major criminal investigation into his testimony in Congress.

BUCK: Can we just…? Let’s try to take a step back, Clay, from the, “Oh, yes, do I think that Fauci is the most evil Democrat Smurf in the history of the United States? Probably.” But we’ll take a step back from the fact that I find this guy to be utterly detestable on many, many levels and look at this in any other context. He is the most visible, most vocal, architect, if you will, of our covid response.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: We are now 18 months-plus into this nightmare. We are in a worse place by the numbers now —

CLAY: Than we ever have been.

BUCK: — than we were a year ago under the Trump administration pre-vaccine with Fauci in charge! If he were a general, he would have to resign because he is losing the war based, in large part, on the horrible decisions he’s made. But he stays? He’s the only person that can do this job? He’s the only one we hear from?

CLAY: Buck, we’ve got the NFL kicking off today. If Fauci were an NFL coach, he would have a hundred billion percent been fired already. We have a higher standard when it comes to football coaches than we do for the leader of our covid response in many ways on behalf of the federal government.

BUCK: And you and I both know the reason Fauci isn’t gone — and, by the way, will not be gone until he chooses.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: Even though I think future generations or historians… When we finally get some clarity here people gonna realize what utter madness this was. We’re gonna look back at the mask craze the way people did the tulip craze when one bulb of tulip was worth more than, like, the entire output of a major nation at the time.

CLAY: That’s great. Also, it’s gonna be like Vietnam, I think, where all of these experts who told us the best and brightest minds got us into Vietnam, the best and brightest minds that led us to this deferment to science — even though it’s not real science — I think this is going to be like that where everybody eventually comes around and realizes how insane it’s been.

BUCK: But the reason Fauci has the job security, Clay, is because from the very beginning he… He’s a Democrat. I mean, that’s obvious, and he has been identified with “the science” Democrats, the same people that talk about “menstruating persons” and all this stuff. Fauci has been their guru. Fauci has been their figurehead, their symbol.

So they know that if he goes, people might start to say, “Wait a second. What exactly did that guy do and why was he…?” So they’ll keep him as long as he wants Right now, I bet you the plan is for him to maybe retire with honor after the midterm election when there’s no possibility of political fallout from it. And you say, “There’s no accountability in government whatsoever in these bureaucratic roles.” That’s the problem.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: Clay and I have been asking the question today in the show, the beginning of the show, “How can Fauci still have a job?” Think about what a disaster all the covid response has been, and even if you think it’s not Fauci’s fault, if you want to be a Fauci defender, fine. Well, not fine, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Shouldn’t we at least bring in some fresh thinking? Shouldn’t we bring in somebody else to be the voice and the face of the “mitigation” movement, so to speak? Well, you add that to the 900 pages of documents that the Intercept got that say that there was, in fact, U.S. funding from a cutout from Fauci at the NIH, in essence.

Using Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, money went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to do gain-of-function research, U.S. taxpayer dollars. Peter Doocy, who has the great job of being one of the only people who gets to ask — or will ask and get to ask — real questions in the White House press corps had quite an exchange with Jen Psaki today on this one. And you can just see that they’re all Fauciites in this White House.

DOOCY: You said from that podium that under no circumstance would President Biden ever fire Dr. Fauci. Is that still the case, since Fauci told Congress the NIH never funded gain-of-function research for coronaviruses in Wuhan, but documents published by the Intercept suggest that is not true, which would mean that he misled Congress.

PSAKI: Well, first I would say that NIH, uh, has, uh, refuted, uh, that reporting, ummm, and, uh, I would point you to that. But let me give you some highlights of that. Uh, NIH has never approved any research that would make the coronavirus more dangerous to humans. I’m reminded that there are previous and different coronaviruses than the existing one we’re battling. And the body of science produced by this research demonstrates that the bat coronavirus sequences published from that work, uh, NIH supported were not, uh, covid, the — the strain, covid-2 strain. Uh, so what he said was correct.

DOOCY: So his job is safe?

PSAKI: Correct.

BUCK: Oh, his job is safe, Clay! Just like we’ve been saying. This just happened, by the way, this just occurred in the last hour or so.

CLAY: Good job by Peter Doocy asking that question. Clearly Jen Psaki was prepared for it, and again, what I would say is, all of these defenses are very lawyered up. When I say somebody “lawyers up,” what I mean is they know that they are oftentimes in peril, and so they start to try to craft a very distinct defense that is different than just like the blanket denial, right?

What Jen Psaki there is trying to say is, “Well, we may have paid for gain-of-function research, but it wasn’t the gain-of-function research on this particular covid virus.” Whether or not that’s true or not, I don’t know. It still doesn’t disprove the fact that we paid for gain-of-function research in the Wuhan virology lab, which then ended up losing or somehow getting the covid virus out.

So just pay attention to what is being said. They’re trying to finesse a very tiny needle here difference between what they did and what he was saying they did in his testimony so that, again — we talked about this yesterday, Buck — one of the most challenging cases to make is perjury, because perjury requires so many concrete elements, and it’s hard to prove intent. Sometimes people just misspeak. Sometimes they don’t —

BUCK: Congress, I mean, people go to prison all the time for 1001 violations. That’s the FBI’s favorite statute, lying to federal officers. That’s the best one.

CLAY: Right. But it still is a challenge to prove that somebody lied to Congress, right? There’s a relatively difficult charge.

BUCK: Yes. Very few people go to prison. You said perjury. Broadly speaking people go to prison for perjury frequently, but to Congress? When was the last time you heard somebody who wasn’t a Trump supporter, by the way, who got sent for lying to Congress?

CLAY: And a lot of times, by the way, you plea down if they catch you, you can get caught in blatant lie because you’re not expecting… This is what happens a lot, right? The FBI shows up at people’s doors, they panic, they’re not expecting to get quizzed on something and they say something that can be proven to be false.

What I’m saying here Fauci is doing and what the White House are doing, this is all lawyered up. They are preparing their defense in advance because they know that Fauci is ethically in a tough spot, and they’re trying to argue that he’s not culpable even though I think reasonable listeners would argue that he is.

BUCK: Fauci’s gotta go.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And I know that they’re dug in on this one and they — we’ve discussed this, why they don’t want to let Fauci go, because, first of all, I think the same way there are parents who are completely detached from the realty of the numbers and really believe that their child will die unless they’re wearing a loosely draped face cloth for part of the day.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: There are also people who think that without Fauci, they couldn’t sleep at night. Fauci has become their little totalitarian Smurf security blanket. And that’s what they don’t want to ever give up. I mean, they like to have this guy. If you’re a CNN watcher — and, first of all, you think that CNN is real journalism, which is hilarious to begin with.

You see Fauci come on TV, you probably think, “Oh, okay, we’ll be okay. We need to see more Fauci,” you know? And so they don’t want to let him go. We do need to push for him to get fired even though it’s not gonna happen because eventually it may become such an outcry that they at least make him step down or step aside in some way.

CLAY: Or just not be the primary spokesperson —

BUCK: That’s what I mean.

CLAY: They sideline him and hide him somewhere.

BUCK: I actually think that the Trump administration probably should have fired him web but look, I’ll admit that’s Monday morning quarterbacking now, but if I am Monday morning quarterbacking, I think it would have been worth it to get rid of him early on.