With much of Fox News acting like a lynch mob against Dr. Anthony Fauci, host Chris Wallace told viewers there’s no evidence the “devoted public servant” did anything wrong. But the fact check did little more than provide cover for Lachlan Murdoch’s disingenuous claim that his network provides “all sides.”
With America-hating Tucker Carlson (still refusing to say if he's been vaccinated or not) paving the way for his colleagues to paint Fauci as a criminal and #LyingKayleighMcEnany and others on Fox suggesting the pandemic in the U.S. is Fauci’s fault, Wallace reminded viewers who was in charge at the time. Spoiler alert: it was the guy who has admitted lying about the pandemic's danger.
On yesterday's America Reports, anchor John Roberts began his discussion with Wallace by asking about former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s accusation that the National Institutes of Health (where Fauci works) tried to suppress information the State Department was developing, tying the origins of COVID virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“This wasn’t happening in the Biden State Department,” Wallace said pointedly. “It was happening in the Trump State Department.” He also noted that while there were some there pushing to investigate the origins of COVID, others thought it would open a can of worms.
“You know, it seems to me, John, that we ought to take the politics out of this,” Wallace said, even more pointedly. “I think there certainly has been too much politics already.” He then both-sides it, accusing Democrats and “some people in the media” of dismissing Trump’s attempts to blame the Chinese.
“That was a mistake then. I think it’s a mistake now to over politicize it,” Wallace continued. “We absolutely need to find out” the origins of the COVID virus, he said, but that will be “harder and harder” as it’s been more than a year after the fact and “the Chinese aren’t cooperating.”
“To the degree that we’re trying to find that out, we all ought to be on the same side and not forming a circular firing squad,” Wallace said. As if Lachlan Murdoch’s pet hatemonger, Tucker Carlson, or his fellow propagandists would ever pass up an excuse to s*** on anything remotely Democratic or Biden and use it to extol Dear Leader Donald Trump’s Magnificent Leadership that would have been even more magnificent were he not the Biggest Victim In The History Of The World.
WALLACE: You know, I think we can spend too much time trying to say, “Well, who did what when and what.”
What those emails indicated – you know, I frankly, in the whole question of Dr. Fauci, I’ve looked at reports – I can’t say I’ve read all thousands of emails. There’s no smoking gun there that Dr. Fauci was saying something different on COVID and the virus and the origins of the virus.
At that point, Roberts interrupted Wallace to show Fox correspondent Peter Doocy grilling Press Secretary Jen Psaki on the subject during her White House press briefing, including the gotcha, “Can you imagine any circumstance where President Biden would ever fire [Fauci]?”
Psaki gave a curt “No,” and moved on.
Speaking again to Wallace, Roberts rephrased Doocy’s question to make the exchange more incriminating. “So there you go. Jen Psaki answering some questions from our Peter Doocy on Dr. Fauci at the end there, saying is there any circumstance under which President Biden would consider firing Dr. Fauci. [Doocy had asked whether she could imagine any such circumstance] She said no, so the White House standing full square behind Fauci, even as more and more questions are asked about what did he know, when did he know it, whether or not this money that the NIH had granted to laboratories in the United States and to Wuhan ever got used for gain of function research.”
Wallace let the insinuations go unremarked. But he doubled down on his defense of Fauci, even as Roberts tried to damn him with the faint praise of being a “survivor.”
WALLACE: I’ve read reports and read through a number of the emails. There’s no smoking gun there that indicates that Fauci had any reason to believe that this had come from the laboratories and from the Wuhan Virology Laboratory.
And this is – I’ll answer the question, even though Jan Psaki wouldn’t. This is highly political. I can promise you that you’re seeing it as a major talking point from Republicans. I think that when Donald Trump speaks tomorrow night in North Carolina, you’re going to see him go after Fauci.
Let’s just remember Anthony Fauci has been on the firing lines trying to protect Americans from public health issues since the mid-80s with AIDS. And before we start talk calling for his head, this guy who’s been a devoted public servant for 40 years, maybe we ought to slow down just a little bit.
ROBERTS: Yeah, he’s a survivor, no question about that. Who you got on this Sunday?
WALLACE: Well, he’s more than a survivor. He’s a public servant, John.
ROBERTS: No, but I’m just saying that he’s managed to survive in a very hostile environment as well. So in addition to being a public servant, he’s a survivor.
The despicable truth is that Fox and Murdoch don’t care what Fauci has done for this country, just like they don’t care what Trump has done to it. If destroying an 80-year old public servant is expedient for their politics, they’re perfectly willing to do so.
The same is true for Wallace’s remarks. Just like when he demolished Fox's mail-in voter fraud lies, Wallace's debunking of the Fauci attacks seem to have evaporated into the ether. They will probably only be recalled in case Lachlan Murdoch needs a fig leaf for his claim that Fox is not extremist propaganda with a reckless disregard for the truth. Wallace’s appearance is not one of the show’s videos posted online. Predictably, the show's top hosts, such as Murdoch pet Tucker Carlson, paid it no heed. Ditto for Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
You can watch Wallace deliver the truth most Fox viewers will never see or hear below, from the June 4, 2021 America Reports.