'This Hearing Is Designed To Entrap You': Democratic Senator Defends Fauci During Senate Hearing

[0:00] Senator Hassan. Thank you. Dr. Fauci, I want to start by thanking you for more than 50 years of [0:09] service to this country at the National Institutes of Health. And it is unfortunate that you have [0:15] been put in the position that you are in today. And it must be enormously frustrating to know [0:21] that this hearing is designed to entrap you. It must be very frustrating for your attorneys [0:27] to hear the chair's mischaracterization of the legal issues and posture that impact your decisions [0:35] at the witness table today. Meanwhile, I was going to ask you a series of questions about [0:44] things that are relevant right now to the people of the United States about the state of public [0:52] health in this country. Since President Trump took office in 2025, more than 4,500 cases of [1:04] measles have been reported. That is more cases in the year and a half since Donald Trump has [1:09] been president than were reported from 2000 to 2024 combined. Children are dying because [1:20] there has been increased vaccine hesitancy fueled by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health [1:28] and Human Services, and frankly, his entire administration. Thousands of people in the United States of [1:35] America have been sickened by a foodborne parasite. And the outbreak is nowhere near under control, [1:47] as staffing at the FDA and other critical public health entities has been slashed by Russell [1:54] vote and Elon Musk. Last year, the National Institutes of Health awarded 200, I think it's 201 fewer [2:04] grants compared to the previous years, 207, I am corrected, compared to previous years. As those grants [2:14] were either canceled or delays, especially at the beginning of the Trump administration, I can tell you, [2:19] I can tell my colleagues what the impact was on people in New Hampshire, on scientists in New [2:26] Hampshire, on clinical trials in New Hampshire, where people's cancer treatment was interrupted because [2:32] Elon Musk and Russell vote no better, they say, than the people at NIH about what to fund. And because they [2:43] did some sort of word search, it seems, for some of the grants, and boy oh boy, if you were studying rural [2:49] health in New Hampshire and trying to understand how to better engage people who need health care in [2:57] rural America, that was off the table. America is losing researchers and scientists to other countries [3:11] because researchers and scientists, highly trained, highly qualified, invested in often by the American [3:19] taxpayer are finding the hostility from this administration so strong that it interferes with their [3:27] science and they want to pursue science wherever that science takes them. I also sit on the Health, [3:38] Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. We have had a number of hearings with nominees recently to fill [3:46] critical spots. One of those nominees is Dr. Erica Schwartz, a brilliant woman, medical degree, [3:55] biomedical engineering degree. I think she also told us she has a law degree and a master's in public health. [4:01] She was a two-star admiral in the United States Navy, an experienced doctor. And yet, when I asked her [4:13] if she would push back at Secretary Kennedy, if he instructed her to suspend the promotion of the flu [4:25] vaccine as he did some point in the last few months, there's an email to prove it, she couldn't answer that [4:37] question. She either could not, would not, or had been bullied into evading a question about whether [4:46] she as the director of CDC would stand up to Secretary Kennedy, the most unqualified Secretary of Health and [4:56] Human Services this country has ever seen, and more than unqualified, somebody who pursues conspiracy [5:05] theories, degrades people with disabilities, and continues to promote disproved science. [5:15] That's the state of health care and public health in this country right now, not to mention [5:22] the trillion dollars or so of cuts to the Medicaid program that is decimating health care in my state [5:28] and decimating it around the country, not to mention the refusal of my colleagues and [5:35] this administration to extend critical tax cuts for people who are trying to afford insurance on [5:41] the Affordable Care Act. I just was at one of my community health clinics, and they are reporting [5:48] fewer and fewer people coming in for care, disrupting care because they can no longer afford health [5:55] insurance. And that is impacting, of course, the revenue stream to the community health clinic, [6:00] their ability to hire and pay people, their ability to take care of their community. [6:07] That's what I wish we were having hearings about in this committee and in the help committee. [6:13] That's what I wish we were trying to address in a bipartisan way. But instead, we are here in an [6:24] attempt to entrap you because you had a distinguished career trying to put Americans' public health first. [6:35] With that, I yield.