Former White House COVID-19 policy architect and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci discussed vaccine mandates and policy missteps during interviews this week with House Republicans, the Washington Examiner reported.
“We found out a lot of things over the last couple of days,” Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, told the outlet after Tuesday’s session wrapped up. “When we get the transcript, we’ll see a lot of his quotes, and I think he was being honest.”
Wenstrup, who has described his panel’s work as an “after-action review,” said Fauci acknowledged there were some aspects of the government’s response that could have been implemented better.
The former adviser to presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden “admitted that the mandate could increase vaccine hesitancy,” Wenstrup told the Examiner.
“I can’t get into his mind, but I think he felt it was the right thing to do because he thought it would save lives,” Wenstrup said of the vaccine mandates imposed by the federal government during the pandemic, adding that “he basically was saying the lesson learned [was it] didn’t get into the psyche of America.”
American vaccination rates for infectious diseases have reportedly plunged since 2021, alarming public health officials and doctors alike.
“We have a problem in our country, and now people don’t want to get any vaccines,” Wenstrup, who co-chairs the GOP Doctor’s Caucus, told the Examiner. “The mRNA vaccine is different. The messaging was never really good, and I don’t think America ever felt like they were being educated. They were getting indoctrinated.”
Similarly, Wenstrup said Fauci testified that the six-foot social distancing rule “was not really based on any data,” but “just sort of happened.”
Fauci retired from the National Institutes of Health in December 2022 after more than 50 years of service. He also stepped down from the position of chief medical adviser to President Biden at that time. Last July, he joined the medical school and public policy faculty at Georgetown.
One of the biggest takeaways from Fauci’s two days of testimony, Wenstrup said, is that there is “not a lot of accountability and responsibility” for what went wrong.
“We need to identify where the problems are and develop a construct that’s going to make more sense,” Wenstrup told the Examiner. “The trust is broken.”
Coronavirus subcommittee ranking member Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., put out a statement Tuesday night calling on the panel’s Republican majority to make the full 14-hour transcript available as soon as possible, “so that the American public can see through this extreme fishing expedition for themselves.”
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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