Fauci Hits Back at Ex-CDC Chief Claiming He Was Sidelined From Covid Origins Conference Call: ‘Sad That He’s So Wrong’

Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back on Robert Redfield after the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director claimed he was excluded from a conversation about the origins of the coronavirus.

NewsNation host Chris Cuomo interviewed Fauci on Tuesday night, asking the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director for his thoughts on Covid-19’s origins and the political attacks made against him. The interview eventually turned to Redfield’s claim that Fauci was among those who tried to suppress and discredit the theory that Covid came from a Chinese laboratory instead of emerging naturally.

Redfield, a proponent of the Wuhan lab leak theory, testified before Congress earlier this month, and claimed he was sidelined from a call Fauci once had with evolutionary virologists. The former CDC chief said the reason for his exclusion was “it was told to me that they wanted a single narrative and that I, obviously, had a different point of view.”

Fauci disputed Redfield’s accusation in a previous interview, insisting that the conference call included people who supported the lab leak theory. When Cuomo asked for his response to the testimony, Fauci said “it’s really sad, Chris, that he’s wrong on every single account.”

First of all, he had no idea what my ideas were, because I kept a completely open mind. Secondly, I was not responsible. I didn’t include or exclude anybody from the call. Because the people that were responsible for setting up the call were Jeremy Farrar from the Wellcome Trust in the U.K., Eddie Holmes from Australia, and a bunch of other very competent evolutionary virologists. It’s sad that he’s so wrong, and he’s publicly saying that I excluded him.

Now, the other thing that’s important, he’s saying that I excluded him because his idea was different from my idea — and his idea was that it came from a lab. Well, half the people on the call felt it might be from a lab! So his rationale for why he thought he was excluded doesn’t make any rational sense.

So on every single level, he’s incorrect. So I don’t know what he was saying at that hearing, or what prompted him to say that. He says, ‘I was told that.’ Well, if I were one of the people on the hearing, I would have said ‘Well, who told you that?’ Because it doesn’t make any sense and it’s not true.

Watch above via NewsNation.