Senator Ted Cruz of Texas slammed Anthony Fauci for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic during a panel with Senator JD Vance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday.
Mr Cruz and Mr Vance took part in a live recording of Mr Cruz’s podcast The Verdict with conservative radio host Ben Ferguson on the stage at CPAC. Earlier in the panel, attendees booed a clip of Dr Fauci from the beginning of the pandemic.
The three panelists mentioned how the Department of Energy released a study earlier this week saying it was likely that Covid-19 came from a lab in Wuhan.
In response, Mr Ferguson asked whether there would be any consequences for officials who managed the Covid-19 pandemic such as Dr Fauci. The clip was played as they showed a compliation of mainstream and liberal press deriding the idea that a lab leak caused Covid-19 in the early months of the pandemic.
“Dr Fauci has done more damage than any bureaucreat in the history of our nation,” he said. “He would be prosecuted for lying under oath and he would go to jail for lying under oath.”
The Texas Senator said that three years ago during the last CPAC in Washington in 2020, he had been exposed to someone who tested positive for Covid-19 and had to quarantine, which meant that he was unable to meet with campaign donors at a concert.
Mr Vance echoed the sentiment of the panel as well.
“There should be accountability. Tony Fauci lied under oath. It’s not just that, he compelled and persuaded the FBI to censor information about the pandemic as it was unfolding,” he said. “It’s absolutely disgraceful what Tony Fauci did.”
Mr Cruz made a joke about how many in the scientific community had thought Covid-19 had been transmitted through a bat.
“The good news is that CPAC is serving bat soup. It's delicious,” he said.
