(NewsNation) — White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said he would testify before Congress if called to do so, something Republicans have said they would ask him to do if they win back the House and Senate in November.
Republicans are anxious to launch an investigation into Fauci, a man the party has gone to great lengths to denigrate during the pandemic, and the Biden administration for its response to the COVID-19 outbreak. If Republicans win back Congress in November, the expectation is high this investigation will begin.
Fauci said on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour” Tuesday that if Republicans want to investigate him they can “go ahead” and “of course” he would testify if asked to.
“I’ve testified before Congress a little more than 250 times over the last 38 years,” Fauci said on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour.” “I have no trouble testifying. When they say they’re going to investigate… everything about me, all the records, are out there. Every one of my emails practically have been FOIA’d, through the Freedom of Information Act.”
Republicans have made Fauci a target of their frustrations around COVID-19 mandates and shutdowns since the beginning of the pandemic. They have floated a theory that Fauci funded research that might be traced back to the origins of the virus.
“One way or another, if we are in the majority, we will subpoena his records and he will testify in the Senate under oath,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Fauci does not seem overly worried about Republican inquiries.
“If they’re going to investigate me, I’d like to ask ‘investigate me for what’?” Fauci added. “For telling people to get vaccinated? For telling people to wear a mask? For telling people to abide by common sense, good public health practices?
On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump said he did “the opposite” of whatever Fauci would advise him to do early in the pandemic.
“I don’t have any comment to that, none, no comment at all,” Fauci said. “The record speaks for itself. Done.”
Monkeypox, meanwhile, was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization on Saturday after the outbreak spread across 70 countries globally. WHO said the circumstances surrounding the outbreak were “extraordinary.”
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “I know this has not been an easy or straightforward process and that there are divergent views.”
The United States has not yet declared the outbreak an emergency, but Fauci has said it’s not out of the question, saying it was “under active consideration” by the secretary of HHS.
Fauci also said he was “not sure” if the White House would name a “monkeypox coordinator” as it did for COVID-19.
“With or without a coordinator we are taking monkeypox very seriously, it’s an evolving situation,” Fauci said.