Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president, was confused by one Republican senator’s request for him to travel to the southern border.
Amid an influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as more than 2.8 million people have died from the coronavirus, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham urged the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to travel to the border to “witness in person the biggest superspreader event in the nation.”
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The overcrowding at migrant facilities should lead people to be “gravely concerned about what is happening at our southern border,” Graham said Friday on social media.
Fauci has had a good relationship with the senator “over the years,” but Graham’s request was “a little bit bizarre,” because “I mean, I have nothing to do with the border,” he said Saturday on Fox News.
Host Neil Cavuto rephrased Graham’s sentiment, asking: “What did — I think what Lindsey Graham … because of the COVID spread at the border with all of these thousands who have been crammed in there, maybe someone with your expertise should be down there just to monitor how worrisome the situation this is. Do you think it’s a worrisome situation? Do you think it could be a superspreader event?”
Fauci said his presence at the border would not make migrants safer.
“I mean, obviously, it is a very difficult situation at the border. We all know that. The administration is trying as best as they can to alleviate that situation. Having me down at the border, that’s really not what I do. Neil, you know what I do. I develop vaccines. I develop countermeasures. I mean, having me at the border — I don’t know why they’re saying I should be at the border any more than someone who has experience in those types of things,” he said. “I just was a little bit concerned when people equate what I do with the border.”
Fauci claimed ignorance for conservatives who harbor animosity toward him, though his detractors point to policies he promoted at the beginning of the pandemic that were later reversed, such as mask-wearing. He criticized former President Donald Trump, which earned him a rebuke from the former commander in chief in response.
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“I don’t know the reason for the animus, but I’m really not quite sure, and quite frankly, Neil, I am so busy trying to do some important things to preserve the health and the safety of the American people that I can’t be bothered with getting distracted with these people that are doing these ad hominems again. Really, it doesn’t bother me,” Fauci said.
The uptick in migrants encountered at the border has increased during the Biden administration, but its defenders note that the data show the increase began during the end of the Trump administration, while Republicans have critiqued President Joe Biden’s immigration policy changes.
Some migrants point to the change in White House policies, notably Biden’s reversal of Trump’s policy of returning unaccompanied minors to Mexico, as the impetus for their journeys to the border.
