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Live Coverage of Senate Hearings with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 29, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Dr. Fauci, were you ever made aware of gain of function research on monkeypox being conducted at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, NBACC, at Fort Detrick?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

PAUL: Dr. Fauci, did the CIA ever transfer funds to NIH under interagency agreement?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

PAUL: Dr. Fauci, did the NIH ever conduct research for or in coordination with any element of the intelligence community, CIA, ODNI?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

PAUL: The reason why these questions are important is, you know, President Trump has done a ban, and we're glad that he did it, a ban on gain of function research. So, we're better off than we were when we had an advocate serving as head of NIAID, an advocate for gain of function research.

There is still, though, a question, though, whether or not the intelligence community is adhering to that order. There's a question of whether or not gain of function research is still ongoing. And these are important questions the American people deserve to know.

Dr. Fauci, have you been read into any classified Department of Homeland Security program, any prospective special access program concerning gain of function research?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

PAUL: When we look at the research in China, the gain of function research that you've denied was gain of function, one of the things that startled the scientists when they saw Covid in the first couple of weeks was when they looked at the sequence of it, they said, oh my God, there's a -- there's a furin cleavage site in it. And in this particular family of coronaviruses, the SARS-CoV viruses, they'd never seen this before.

They were also startled to look at it and see how it was coded for, what the codons were. And to discover that the codons used out of 36 different possibilities turned out to be the one that was commonly used in gene manipulation by scientists.

Dr. Fauci, were the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology capable of inserting a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

PAUL: So, one of the experiments that was pretty common was they would take the backbone of a SARS virus, and this would be SARS virus that the backbone itself wasn't that dangerous. But then they would dig through guano, 300 feet underground, bat guano, they'd find other viruses, unknown viruses. They take the S protein off of an unknown virus and stick it on a backbone. And then they would affect mice that have humanized cells. And they were trying to discover if they could create a virus that infects humans.

Now, many people would say, well, gosh, that doesn't sound like a really good idea to create viruses that don't exist in nature to see if they'll infect human cells. What if one escaped? What if you keep infecting this and do serial passage, you actually adapt the virus to be infectious to humans?

So, the question is, is whether or not, Dr. Fauci, the Wuhan Institute of Virology was combining an S protein with one virus with the backbone of others, and could this lead to a virus, maybe it wasn't even predicted, but could it lead to viruses that gained in function and then could lead to a pandemic?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

PAUL: One of the arguments that you and others have made against this virus coming from the lab is, it couldn't have come from the viruses that have been published. And nobody's really arguing that. I think from the very beginning, people acknowledged that the viruses that have been published are too far evolutionarily distant from a virus that could have become Covid-19. But what has never been acknowledged by the side who tries to call the other side a conspiracy theory, which is really something you don't usually see in a scientific debate -- this is the first time I've ever seen an article printed in "Lancet" by your friends who called this a conspiracy theory.

[09:05:05]

You know, these are the kind of things you see as a screed on a political, you know, website. You don't really see this in science. But when they released this as being a conspiracy theory, you know, we're wondering that when you do this, when you combine these viruses and are able to grow them in humanized cells, whether or not this kind of risky research, whether or not whether you call it gain of function or not, whether you use the definition of gain of function, whether this kind of research should have had more scrutiny.

I think in your House testimony, you testified that you never traveled to China and that you were unaware that anybody in NIH ever examined the labs. That you trusted the Chinese scientists. I think you said that even recently that with your discretion you trusted the Chinese scientists.

The problem is, is that, even in our country, we trust our scientists. They're good, American scientists, probably doing the right thing for America. But at the same time, we oversight to make sure it's not dangerous research. But we also investigate the lab.

I believe Fort Detrick was, one of our main labs, was closed down in the last year or two because of, you know, research institute -- a research incident that was dangerous with dangerous pathogens.

And so, the American people would want to know, how could you approve this dangerous research in China, say that you trusted the Chinese scientists, and then, in the end, you had to admit that you'd never been there, and none of your inspectors had ever been there.

Dr. Fauci, had any of the labs where this dangerous research was occurring, were any American lab oversight or lab investigators, did they ever appear in these labs to make sure they were safe labs?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

PAUL: So, one of the main theories for those who have looked at, you know, this being created in the lab was the idea that could have come from a virus not previously published.

Dr. Fauci, are you aware that Dr. Shi, who worked for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was said to, and I think in her own words, to have over 100 viruses that had not been previously published that could have been a close enough relative to create Covid-19? Are you aware of that?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

PAUL: Under your testimony previously, when you denied ever having funded gain of function in China, it was -- it was so adamant as to be striking, to leave no room for any interpretation of what is or isn't gain of function research. But there's another important question. Did you fund gain of function research in other bio labs around the world?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

PAUL: The one research project that we do know you did fund is the one that Ron Fouchier did. And it's important to talk about because this sort of was the beginning of the debate over gain of function. This wasn't just me. I wasn't even aware of the debate ten years ago. This was other scientists, over 200 scientists at the Cambridge Working Group signed a protest because they didn't think you should fund the research, and they didn't think it should even be funded -- published, because it was sort of a roadmap as to how to make a bioweapon.

So, what they did was the avian flu. And this is important. It may be the most important question we get to hear today. The avian flu has about 50 percent mortality for humans. The good news, though, about animal viruses is they don't infect humans very well. It will infect humans but doesn't go human to human very well.

Ron Fouchier, with the money that you provided to him, did an experiment where he caused purposeful mutations to create a new virus, an avian flu that didn't just infect birds well but actually infected mammals well, went ferret to ferret in an aerosolized manner. People saw this and were aghast, you know, at the decision-making process that you decided to fund this. But this is when, you know, the debate came about and you wrote in support of this in "The Washington Post" and you said, even if a scientist is bitten, even if a pandemic should occur, the knowledge is worth the risks.

Do you still stand by that? Would you like to qualify at all whether or not the knowledge of gain of function is worth the risks, particularly in this case, since we now know 15 million people died worldwide, many people believe this came from the lab. Do you think that the risks really are worth the benefits for gain of function research?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

[09:10:00]

PAUL: We're going to finish with this question. And it's based really on that statement, that general statement in your support for gain of function. The idea that the benefits outweigh the risks.

So, there are many other people who disagree. And they aren't politicians. They're not -- I don't know what party they're in. David Relman is probably one of the most esteemed. And he is a scientist at Stanford. He, I think, has classified clearance. He's been a consultant to our government probably for a decade or more. And he's written about this publicly. He says the opposite. He said that the risks of this research do not outweigh the benefits. He said the risks -- we shouldn't do it.

Richard Ebright, who's been involved in this debate for two decades, says the same thing. Does he really -- we really shouldn't be doing this at all. There's a quote also by -- the Kevin Esvelt quote, is that at the very end. Kevin Esvelt, who's a CRISPR scientist at MIT, also wrote about this gain of function. "I implore every scientists funder and nation working in the field, please stop. No more trying to discover or make pandemic capable viruses. No more experiments likely to disseminate blueprints for plagues." Dr. Fauci, would you like to at least answer this one question for us today and let us know whether or not you've changed your mind on whether or not the benefits of gain of function research outweigh the risks

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

PAUL: The chairman has denied your assertion of privilege and directed you to answer them, but you nonetheless refuse and stand on privilege despite the existence of the pardon. The committee will have to consider, after this hearing, what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so. It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.

Senator Peters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

PAUL: You're not recognized. You're not recognized. If you are unruly, you will be removed from the proceeding. You are not -- you are not recognized. And you -- you are not recognized, sir. Sir, you are not recognized. You are not recognized.

Security.

We will -- we'll hold off. But you will respect these proceedings. You were told not to sit at the table. You insist on sitting at the table. And we told you, you would not be recognized. You are not invited here for testimony, sir. You are being disruptive. Would you behave this way in a courtroom? No, because the judge would put you in jail.

I can't do that today, but I can have you escorted from the premises. So, I would say, sir, sit quietly and don't say another word.

I said, sit quietly. You are not recognized. Another word and you're gone.

SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): So, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to hear what the attorney has to say.

PAUL: He is not recognized by the committee or the chair. If he speaks again, he will be removed from the room. This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers. He can advise -- his lawyers can give him advice. He's got a half dozen here. They're all allowed to talk to him, all right.

PETERS: Yes. Y es.

PAUL: But the attorneys are not recognized. In fact, the attorney was told not to sit at the table, and he's not obeying that recommendation. There's a row behind you, sir. That's where you were told to sit, and you're not. And now you're disrupting the proceedings. And so, look, this is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered, for a lawyer not listening to the rules. That's the way you want to be remembered? And that's what you're going to do. You are not recognized, sir.

Security, please remove him from the room.

Let the record state that Dr. Fauci will still have the advice of the other half a dozen attorneys that he brought along today.

Senator Peters.

[09:15:02]

PETERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Covid-19 pandemic is not the first or the last public health crisis to impact our nation. In December 2022, I released a report that identified significant failures in our federal government's preparedness and initial response to Covid-19. This report contained 17 key findings. It's a very large report, which I have right here. It contains 17 key findings and corresponding recommendations, including the need to invest in sustainable, domestic manufacturing capabilities for critical medical supplies, build the infrastructure needed to surge testing capacity for infectious diseases, and robustly fund public health emergency preparedness and responses across all levels of government.

Unfortunately, multiple administrations, including the current Trump administration, have failed to fund or to reform our health preparedness. This is something that I would hope the committee in the future would investigate. It needs to be taken a look at.

It also feels like a new public health threat is hitting us every month. There's a food borne parasite affecting thousands of people in Michigan and across the country. And our federal agencies still haven't fully pinned down the source of that outbreak.

Measles cases in this country are at the highest they've been in 35 years. More children are getting sick and even hospitalized from this preventable disease. Over 1,000 people have died from the Ebola virus in Africa. And we don't know how widespread this crisis actually is.

We had a hantavirus scare on a cruise ship. And though it hasn't made headlines in the way that the screwworm threatening our food security has. I remain concerned about bird flu that is also spreading and could one day cause a pandemic. This is also something this committee should be investigating and holding hearings on.

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has taken a number of actions to drastically weaken our ability to fight infectious diseases and biological threats that endanger Americans. These actions are both incomprehensible and are also inexcusable. They include slashing funding for public health and infectious disease research, canceling contracts for cutting edge vaccine technology, shutting agencies responsible for tackling infectious diseases around the world, firing thousands of federal employees with keeping our communities and our medicines and our food supply safe, and injecting political appointees in what should be non-political, grant making functions. That is something this committee should be looking at.

I could go on. I could go on, on all the topics that we need to be looking at moving forward to protect this country. We're not doing that in this committee. That's what this committee was designed to do. It's what it has done throughout history. It has done it in a bipartisan way. We should get back to that and think about the future of this country and keeping this country safe.

When a crisis like Covid-19 strikes, we have an obligation to examine what went right and what went wrong to provide accountability for the American people. Congress certainly has done that. Between the House and Senate, nearly 20 different committees, 20 different committees, including this committee, as I mentioned, have conducted oversight of the Covid-19 pandemic, conducting transcribed interviews, holding dozens of hearings, and released more than ten reports.

Today's exercise, unfortunately, is a stark departure from those largely bipartisan, legitimate efforts. The chairman has shut the minority out of participating equally in these efforts, withheld information, selectively released documents, actions that completely undermine the credibility of this investigation. I will enter a record, without objection, Mr. Chairman, a letter that I sent to you that detailed all of those areas that we have concerned with and where we were shut out. We will be --

PAUL: Without objection.

PETERS: We'll provide other details as well.

I think today's hearing, unfortunately, does real damage. It's turning -- attempting to turn one person into the scapegoat for a crisis that hundreds of officials across both the Trump and the Biden administration were responsible for handling. And it does so in a way that it -- people that are facing death threats. This is only going to, unfortunately, deter other scientific experts from public service, to understand that this is what they would have to go through as they provide their advice to us.

We're not going to make our nation safer, and I hope that we can restore the -- by doing these kinds of activities. And I hope that we can restore our legitimate, bipartisan oversight that's going to help strengthen our public health and pandemic preparedness and other homeland priorities.

[09:20:04]

That's what this committee needs to focus on. It hasn't the last year and a half. Let's hope it does in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

PAUL: Senator Johnson.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Fauci, I hope the American people listened very carefully to Chairman Paul's opening statement. I think it's a stunning indictment of the actions you've taken that have been so destructive to global health.

I certainly understand why you needed a pardon. I certainly understand why, on the advice of counsel, you're not answering any questions because I think it would be almost impossible for you to answer the questions truthfully without really demonstrating what you did. Your culpability. Self-incriminating.

We have, all of us, has prepared a lot. I've been deluged with questions to ask Dr. Anthony Fauci. There are so many legitimate questions that deserve answers, and now you're not willing to provide those answers.

So, with my limited time, I'm going to talk about things that my investigation revealed that have not been adequately answered and, quite honestly, haven't been adequately covered by the legacy media. I'll kind of combine the questions into kind of one, but, you know, I certainly -- let's put up the last Covid chart.

I was warned pretty early on about the dangers of the experimental gene therapy that you've called a vaccine, but it really falls under the definition of gene therapy. So, I was going to ask you, I mean, were you carefully monitoring the safety surveillance systems like VAERS and V-safe that literally were deluged with complaints? You know, currently, worldwide, there have been almost 1.7 million adverse events reported to the VAERS system. Of those, over 39,000 were deaths. And of those deaths, 24 percent occur on the day of vaccination within one or two days. Twenty-four percent. Which, by the way, just happens to be the same percentage that a Rasmussen poll pointed out the American public believe they -- 24 percent of the American public believe they know somebody who died of the experimental gene therapy.

So, again, I was certainly interested in asking you whether or not you were following this as carefully as I was. It was not my responsibility to follow safety surveillance systems, but I did. And by the way, when I -- when I published -- this is -- this is actual government information. When I published it and people had me on their shows, they would be censored by Facebook. They'd be deplatformed. I think largely at the behest of the actions you took to make sure that disinformation wasn't spread. This wasn't disinformation. This was the truth.

So, I was going to ask you whether you knew Dr. Marks. I think you do know him. He's the head of CBER. He's the man who is in charge of approving vaccines and surveilling for the safety. My investigation shows that on March 1st of 2021, less than three months after the emergency use authorizations, he was warned by Dr. Anna Schatzmann, data mining expert, that the algorithm they were using to analyze VAERS data was going to hide and mask safety signals. Twenty-six days later, and three months consecutively after that, they did data runs with the new algorithm that unmasked those safety signals. They showed dozens of safety signals, including sudden cardiac death, cerebral artery occlusion, basal ganglia stroke, agonal rhythm, Bell's palsy and pulmonary infarction. Your diaries now show that you actually suffered pulmonary infarction

in, I think, probably June 2021. I was just wondering -- I was just wondering whether it ever went through your mind that maybe that injection, all those boosters you took, might have caused that. And the question I was going to -- and I'll ask this question, were you ever made aware of the fact that Peter Marks was warned that the algorithm was going to hide the safety signals, and were you told that senior FDA officials were given dozens, showing dozens of safety signals --

[09:25:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based on my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. This is the 15th time Dr. Anthony Fauci, right there, is issuing that response to questions from the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Why? He says, "the sole reason Senator Rand Paul is calling me to this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up," in his words, "behind bars."

This is an extraordinary hearing that Senator Rand Paul is leading. Senator Ron Johnson is asking questions right now to Dr. Anthony Fauci, talking about Covid. Dr. Anthony Fauci, of course, led the response to Covid. He is not answering any questions.

We saw his lawyer escorted from the room, ordered by Senator Paul to be taken away, after Dr. Fauci's lawyer, David Schertler, tried to make a statement there.

There is a lot to discuss.

First, though, I want to go to CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig to talk about Dr. Anthony Fauci. What exactly are his Fifth Amendment rights here that he keeps asserting? And I want to remind people, he has received a pardon, he did, from President Joe Biden that covered all of his years during the Covid response up until President Trump was inaugurated for the second time. So, what are those rights and are there any limits?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Right, John, if not for that pardon by President Biden to Jerry Fauci, he would certainly be within his rights to invoke the Fifth here. If he were an ordinary witness who had never been pardoned, absolutely he could take the Fifth.

Now, the complicating factor is Joe Biden did pardon Dr. Fauci. But the thing about that pardon, like any presidential pardon, first of all, it only covers Dr. Fauci for federal crimes. The president can only pardon for federal crimes. And it only covers Dr. Fauci for conduct up to the date of the pardon, which was Joe Biden's last day in office, January 20, 2025.

So, there are two reasons why a person in Dr. Fauci's position might still be able to invoke the Fifth, even with that pardon. First of all, a person in Dr. Fauci's position might be able to say, at least theoretically, I could still be prosecuted under a state's law as opposed to federal. Now, it's hard to imagine what state prosecution there could be of Dr. Fauci, but the Fifth Amendment allows that sort of speculative invocation.

And the second thing that Dr. Fauci and his legal team might say is, OK, but the pardon only covers him up to January 20th of 2025. It would not necessarily cover him if he's to be charged for a crime for something he did today here on July of 2026.

Now, important to know, John, if Senator Rand Paul believes that that is an invalid invocation of the Fifth Amendment, he has the option to go to a federal court and to seek a motion compelling Dr. Fauci to testify, arguing he does not have a Fifth Amendment right. He has to testify.

So, we'll see. That will be the proof in the pudding. If Senator Paul and the committee go to federal court and seek that kind of order. I think ultimately, important to keep in mind, courts tend to give very broad deference when any person invokes the Fifth. So, I think, ultimately, Dr. Fauci does probably have the right to invoke the Fifth here.

What the political fallout will be, and the shame that goes with this invocation of the Fifth, that's separate from the legal question. But I think, legally, he's probably within his rights to take the Fifth here.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Elie, stick with us as Meg Tirrell has been watching this hearing with us.

And you have a statement from his attorneys, part of this lengthy statement does address why he decided to invoke the Fifth, but what else is -- did his attorney say in this?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, in here we also hear from his attorney. I think what is the first sort of response from Fauci's camp to the release of those three years of his personal diary entries. They say in this letter, this is from Fauci's attorney, David Schertler, that "it appears Dr. Fauci's response," this is a quote, "triggered in Senator Paul an intense and seemingly pathological course of retribution, revenge, and obsession with Dr. Fauci. Just this week, Senator Paul publicly released Dr. Fauci's unredacted personal diary that discusses many issues completely unrelated to the matters at hand for the purpose of distorting Dr. Fauci's words and trying to embarrass or intimidate him." So, that's how they're addressing the diary entries.

But then they do address the fact that what they call Chairman Paul's groundless but incessant calls for Dr. Fauci's prosecution. And they say, quote, "Chairman Paul's public crusade against Dr. Fauci can only be described as an obsessive vendetta. It triggers what the Supreme Court has called a, quote, 'basic function' of the Fifth Amendment," quote, "to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances."

They conclude this statement, guys, by saying that "the accusations," quote, "that Chairman Paul continues to propagate are false and disgraceful, and we will examine all options to hold him accountable."

So, that is the response -- we are hearing from the attorney who we believe was just removed from Dr. Fauci's side in this hearing, as he tried seemingly to respond to Chairman Paul for telling him that he could not invoke -- telling Dr. Fauci that he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment right here.

[09:30:06]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I mean, you saw Chairman Paul saying to the