In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) blasted White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci after he attacked Republican politicians and referred to himself as science’s lone representative, accusing the renowned doctor of acting as “leader of a quasi-religious cult” while calling for his resignation.
Throughout the weekend, Fauci — the nation’s top infectious disease expert and Biden’s leading COVID-19 adviser — railed against Republican senators during his media appearances, claiming in one interview on CBS News’s Face The Nation with host Margaret Brennan, that attacking him was “really attacking science.”
Speaking with Breitbart News on Tuesday, Rep. Gallagher responded by blasting Fauci’s lack of humility.
“Despite botching the pandemic response and lying to Congress about his role in funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, Dr. Fauci shows no shred of humility,” he said.
He also referred to Fauci’s claim to represent science as “profoundly anti-scientific,” calling for the immunologist’s dismissal.
“The essence of science is questioning the status quo, actively trying to disconfirm a working hypothesis,” he said. “Here, Fauci reveals he is not a man of science, he is the leader of a quasi-religious cult that screams ‘science’ in order to silence dissent.”
“Dr. Fauci must be fired before he further destroys science,” he added.
In a video posted on Monday, Rep. Gallagher shared his thoughts on Fauci’s remarks, calling his complaints that “criticism of him is the result of how the coronavirus response has been politicized” the “most interesting and troubling part.”
Rep. Gallagher reacts to Dr. Fauci's interview on Face the Nation where Dr. Fauci unscientifically claimed that anyone who questions him is questioning science. pic.twitter.com/kYtfmgy1bY
— Rep. Gallagher Press Office (@RepGallagher) November 29, 2021
“He complains in general about the politicization of science as it were,” he said. “Then he takes a weird political swipe at the senators that are saying accurately he lied to Congress and says, ‘How about January 6?’”
“What the heck does that have to do with anything here?” he added.
Blasting Fauci’s “disdain” for senators exercising their rights and duties, Rep. Gallagher highlighted Fauci’s hypocrisy.
“You have the highest-paid unelected government employee — highest-paid government employee in general — expressing arrogant disdain for senators who have a constitutional obligation to do oversight of the most important question facing the world today without an ounce of humility,” he said.
“And he has the temerity to hit back with a political attack while complaining about politicization,” he added. “It makes no sense.”
Yet, according to Rep. Gallagher, “even more troubling” is Fauci’s take on science in general, in particular his statement that criticism of him is really “criticizing science, because I represent science.”
Lawmakers like Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have called for Dr. Fauci to step down and be prosecuted over the course of COVID-19. Fauci scoffs at such threats, calling it "noise."
"They're really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous." pic.twitter.com/zLzceD2DHe
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) November 28, 2021
“That’s crazy,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
“This idea that Fauci represents science [and that] the science is settled [and] Fauci has come down — he’s the prophet of science — [it’s] very arrogant,” he continued. “But the idea that criticizing science is dangerous misunderstands what science is all about.”
“I would argue the essence of science is self-criticism,” he added.
Noting that 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei was once prosecuted by the church for his support of heliocentrism, in which the earth revolves around the sun, Rep. Gallagher compared Fauci to the medieval church.
“Fast forward to the present day, the church is Fauci,” he said. “He has a near-religious conviction in his own infallibility, and in so doing he is representing science as some sacrosanct thing that cannot be questioned.”
“He’s not interested in science, he’s using science as a cudgel with which to shut down debate,” he added. “That’s dangerous, Dr. Fauci.”
He also reserved criticism for the media’s failure to press Fauci on his statements.
“When [Brennan] asked him about gain-of-function research, she says at one point, well, ‘This is a political football isn’t it?’ Come on! That’s the question?” he asked.
“That’s how you’re leading into the question?” he added. “What is perhaps the most important scientific and public health question out there right now!”
He then accused her of “portraying the bias” that she believes while belittling those concerned “who want to get to the bottom of it [and] don’t want taxpayer dollars to fund experimentation with naturally occurring coronaviruses to make them more chimeric on the off chance they might leak out of the lab and kill millions of people.”
“That’s not a political football,” he added. “It is a legitimate question.”
Rep. Gallagher admitted asking Fauci “why the CDC doesn’t have any useful data two years into this thing” was a good question, to which “[Fauci] does not have a good answer.”
“At one point he seems to kind of throw the CDC under the bus and say, ‘Well, that’s not my job,’ but then, bizarrely, he takes credit for the vaccine,” he said.
“I’m not sure any honest history of Operation Warp Speed is going to give credit to Anthony Fauci for developing the vaccines,” he added.
Rep. Gallagher was not the only prominent voice to criticize Fauci’s comments.
On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul likened Fauci’s “incredibly arrogant” declaration that he represented science to the medieval church.
“When a government bureaucrat has the audacity, the arrogance, to say they represent all of science, we should be running the other way,” he said. “And it conjures up images of the medieval church, in their repression of science.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) referred to Fauci as the “most dangerous bureaucrat” in U.S. history, while comparing him to Louis XIV of France, who had said, “I am the state.”
“I don’t think anyone has hurt science, the credibility of the CDC and doctors, more than Dr. Fauci,” he added.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) reacted by saying it was “very difficult” to trust anything Fauci says because he has “discredited himself” by putting out disinformation.
He added that distrust has not helped get people vaccinated against the virus.
FNC host Tucker Carlson criticized Fauci, claiming he has “morphed into an even shorter version of Benito Mussolini.”
“The man now believes he is a deity accountable to no one,” he added.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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