Dr. Anthony Fauci may have just received an offer too good to resist.
Podcaster Patrick Bet-David made the generous offer to Fauci of $10 million to do a three-hour-long debate with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the issue of vaccines.
“I’m telling you right now, I will pay the $10 million,” said Bet-David during an episode of his PBD Podcast featuring Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
“On the record, right now, I’ll pay Fauci 10 million bucks [for] three hours live podcast with RFK … and he still won’t do it,” he continued. “There’s no way this guy is going to do something like that.”
WOW ?! @patrickbetdavid says he’ll pay Fauci $10 MILLION for a 3 hour debate with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
pic.twitter.com/ioAldSrmNI— PBD Podcast (@PBDsPodcast) October 13, 2023
Fauci, who previously served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 and was a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, has long touted the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 jabs, as well as other vaccines.
The 82-year-old, who was one of the first individuals to receive the vaccine in December 2020, said at the time that he felt “extreme confidence” in its safety and efficacy, according to ABC News.
“I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine and I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country, that would end this pandemic,” he told news media at the time.
Since then, Fauci has repeatedly urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the fact that the vaccines have not succeeded in preventing transmission of the virus.
In his final White House briefing in November 2022, he urged Americans to set aside their “ideological differences” and get the jab.
“When I see people … not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, that have to do because of divisiveness, and ideological differences, as a physician, it pains me,” he said.
“Whether you’re a far right Republican or a far left Democrat, doesn’t make any difference to me,” he continued. “I look upon it the same way as I did in the emergency room in the middle of New York City.”
RFK Jr., meanwhile, has spent much of his legal and political career railing against the risks of vaccines. However, he denies that he is an “anti-vaxxer,” instead arguing that he is merely raising concerns about their safety.
“People who advocate for safer vaccines should not be marginalized or denounced as anti-vaccine. I am pro-vaccine. I had all six of my children vaccinated,” he wrote in his book “Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,” published in 2015.
“I believe that vaccines have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of humans over the past century and that broad vaccine coverage is critical to public health,” he continued. “But I want our vaccines to be as safe as possible.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.