Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton blasted National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday, arguing in a Fox News interview he is “acting as a Democratic Party activist in a white lab coat.”
“Tony Fauci is not acting like a scientist or a doctor anymore. He’s acting as a Democratic Party activist in a white lab coat,” Cotton said during a “Fox & Friends” interview.
“Why doesn’t he tell us what science, what data backs up the Biden administration’s stupid mask mandate for airports and airplanes? Are you more likely to get the coronavirus in an airport than you are a shopping mall?
“Or an airplane with its massive filtration systems? Is it really necessary to kick off a family with an autistic child who can’t wear a mask peacefully for an entire airplane? Does Dr. Fauci have evidence to support that from the data and the science?”
Cotton also noted the restrictions from Facebook on the matter. “We shouldn’t allow Tony Fauci and Facebook to determine what we can and cannot say about this virus,” he said.
The senator further argued the COVID-19 virus was handled as a political issue by Democrats from the beginning.
“From the very beginning, the Democrats saw this pandemic as a way to defeat the former president in the election last year. And anything he said or I said was rejected by the science even if it was proven correct in retrospect,” Cotton said.
“Again it just goes to show that Tony Fauci almost from the beginning has been working as more as a Democratic Party activist in a white lab coat, not a public health expert,” he added.
The interview builds on Cotton’s Op-Ed earlier in June attacking those who opposed the lab-leak theory. “The conventional wisdom about the coronavirus pandemic’s origins has changed rapidly, as conventional wisdom often does,” he wrote.
“Even skeptics and apologists have finally begun to acknowledge the Chinese Communist labs in Wuhan as a possible — even the likely — source of this plague,” Cotton added.
Cotton also addressed the problem of China in a tweet, stating, “The Chinese Communist Party isn’t going to open its labs to allow an investigation into the origin of this virus. It’s well past time the Biden administration begin imposing consequences on the CCP.”
The Chinese Communist Party isn’t going to open its labs to allow an investigation into the origin of this virus.
It’s well past time the Biden administration begin imposing consequences on the CCP. pic.twitter.com/E39RIkLMbq
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) June 21, 2021
Other Republican senators, including Florida’s Marco Rubio, have also called for Fauci to be dismissed.
In an interview on the Fox News show “The Story with Martha MacCallum” earlier in June, Rubio said, “Here’s what’s happened with Dr. Fauci, who I didn’t dislike and actually defended early on in the pandemic.”
“And that is he’s now you know, he’s gotten on the cover of magazines. He’s become this national figure. He enjoys, I think, a little bit the celebrity that’s come with it. And the role that he’s played, almost like a super political, super governmental role is the central authority that everybody has to listen to. I think he’s gotten, you know, high on his own supply a little bit here in regards to this,” he said.
“I think it’s gone too far.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.