Media top headlines July 21
In media news today, politicians mislead on Texas education bill, Jeff Bezos gets roasted for thanking employees and customers for paying for his spaceflight, and critics slam the press for soft treatment of Democratic 'Texas super spreaders'
"The View" co-host Joy Behar strongly defended Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday against criticism from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., concerning the origins of the coronavirus and funding for gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
During a discussion on the clash between Fauci and Paul at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill, Behar praised the former's experience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with helping fight past diseases and claimed the latter should be thanking him instead of blaming him for coronavirus deaths.
"Dr. Fauci … has been running the NIH for 36 years, okay?" Behar said incorrectly after co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked what she thought Paul hoped to get out of his criticism. Fauci runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the 27 institutes that makes up the NIH.
"He's helped us through HIV, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, Zika and Ebola, all right?" she added. "Rand Paul is a third-rate party hack who, by the way, got Covid, is lucky to be alive, and then refused to take the vaccine afterwards."
"If anyone is responsible for all the deaths that have occurred since Covid began, it is more these lying party hacks like Rand Paul who have demonized masks and then demonized vaccines," Behar said. "He should be thanking Fauci instead of accusing him of murder. My God … This is who people are watching on television, speaking to the most brilliant scientist … who has basically helped us through for 36 years under I think four or five presidents."
RAND PAUL: FAUCI INTIMIDATES SCIENTISTS FROM CONTRADICTING HIM BECAUSE ‘HE CONTROLS ALL THE FUNDING’
Paul and Fauci both made headlines after their heated exchange. During the encounter Paul suggested Fauci might have lied to Congress to "obscure responsibility" for funding the lab that potentially leaked the coronavirus. Fauci has staunchly denied the U.S. financed any gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci told Paul he didn't know what he was talking about when he asked Fauci if he wanted to retract those claims.
That's gotten some pushback, however, with Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin saying Tuesday Fauci was "wrong." Rogin has been critical of journalists who blindly accepted the notion the lab-leak theory was debunked and the treatment of Fauci as beyond reproach.
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On Wednesday, Paul said he would send a letter to the Department of Justice calling for a criminal investigation into Fauci for lying to Congress "to cover his tracks and to cover his connection to Wuhan lab."
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