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Fauci Sets Fire to His Legacy

59m 36s

Fauci Sets Fire to His Legacy

In this solo episode, Dave Smith discusses Anthony Fauci's recent testimony before Senator Rand Paul's subcommittee, where Fauci pled the Fifth Amendment to every question after a brief opening statement. Smith calls the moment "surreal," reflecting on Fauci's former status as the face of the COVID-19 pandemic response and his role in justifying lockdowns, mandates, and vaccine policies with supposed scientific authority. Smith argues that Fauci's diary entries, released publicly, prove he lied about key issues, including funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan and the vaccine's effectiveness against transmission and severe illness, while publicly demonizing critics as "anti-science." Smith criticizes Fauci's opening remarks, where Fauci framed Rand Paul's questioning as an "obsession" and a personal vendetta, arguing that pleading the Fifth implies potential criminal liability and undermines his claims of innocence. He highlights a senator's aggressive rebuke of Fauci's wealth and self-dealing, calling it satisfying political theater. Smith also faults the Trump administration for elevating Fauci and notes that despite the overwhelming evidence, real accountability is unlikely. He emphasizes that the spectacle is cathartic and serves as a warning to future tyrants, but expresses frustration that Fauci escapes consequences. The episode ends with Smith promoting upcoming tour dates and reaffirming his libertarian stance, concluding with "fuck Fauci, long live liberty."

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What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I am Dave Smith. Rob is out today, just me for this episode, but we will both be down in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow tomorrow and Friday. Me and Rob will be down at the improv down there. Comic Dave Smith dot com. If you want to grab tickets, I'll be jumping on a plane tomorrow. I flight my flight. I didn't make it to Cincinnati last night, but I will be doing my best to make it down to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow. And I'm being told flights are all on on time and on schedule. So there you go. And of course, I'll be traveling a lot over the rest of the summer and into the fall. So come check out me and Robby the fire burn steam on the road. If you can, we'll be in Appleton, Wisconsin, August 13 through 15th, that the comedy mother ship in Austin, Texas, comedy 28 through 30th. Go grab those tickets now. They will sell out quickly. And that's always a real fun weekend. Louisville, Kentucky, Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, Salt Lake City, got dates in Las Vegas in Portland, Maine, not the Portland on the East Coast. And then San Diego, California, Comic Dave Smith dot com for all those ticket links. All right. So today, this morning, some of you may have seen Anthony Fauci long awaited testified before Rand Paul's Senate subcommittee. And I don't know. This was to me a very, very surreal moment. I was really surprised by what happened, which I rarely am. I did not, you know, I, look, maybe, maybe some of you, I got this right when I got it wrong, but I did not think he was going to go in and plead the fifth the whole time. There's a little bit of a legal question here that it is above my pay grade. Talk to a lawyer friend if you got one. But there is a bit of a question here because of the somewhat unprecedented or at least certainly unusual nature of Anthony Fauci's pardon. He's, you know, being pardoned for like these blanket crimes that, you know, typically speaking a pardon, as most people understand it, is like somebody's convicted of a crime and you pardon them for that crime that they've been convicted of. But of course, Tony Fauci has not been convicted of a crime, but did receive a pardon. And it's kind of a blanket pardon. And it's for this long period of time. And then there's questions people are debating like whether or not that pardon applies to this testimony also, or whether it doesn't. But I guess kind of the legal question here is that like if you're being, if you're, if you're being subpoenaed and you're taking the fifth amendment, the fifth amendment says that you have the right to not incriminate yourself. But if you've already received a pardon, you really can't incriminate yourself. And so if you are pleading the fifth, then it would have to be for something that you are incriminated a ball about. And so then it just, it opens up a lot of other legal questions about what could be pursued here. But that is not my area of expertise. And it's not particularly my area of interest. I'm just more interested in kind of the moment and what it says about our country and what people can learn from it. First of all, I'll just say that there's, there is something to me. As I said, it feels very surreal. It's six years later. You know, well, a little bit more than six years, I guess, because it started in March and were in the summer. But like six years ago today, we were in the height of it. And we, and it lasted for years and years. And this guy was the face of it. You know, there's now it is true. As far as she will kind of lean on now when he says, I didn't lock anything down. Like it is true that he was not a lockdown governor. And he was not the president of the United States of America. And he, okay, but he was, this guy was literally, and everybody, we all lived through this together, right? I'm not exaggerating. When I say, he was the face of the government response to the pandemic. And more than just the face of it, he was, his role was like the person there to give the scientific rationale for the totalitarianism. Like, yes, yes, yes, there's this governor who just declared it illegal for you to have a funeral for your father. And you know, you American citizen might be wondering to yourself in some faint part of your mind, like, but I thought this was the United States of America. How can the government possibly say it's illegal for me to go to work and illegal for me to have a funeral for a dad for my dad and illegal for me to have like a play date with my kids. Like how, how can the government possibly say that they don't have the right to, but hey, we got this guy in a white coat who's got all this science, you know, to tell you that. So like, that's the role this guy played. And okay, now this thing, COVID, as I talked about a little bit on the last episode or two episodes ago, but you know, this thing, COVID, you know, understand for me personally, and I'm not trying to just make it about me, obviously, because it was a huge thing for the country. It upended tens of millions of people's lives as COVID and the COVID response must be clear the response because, you know, sometimes when you say COVID, it still makes it sound like you're talking about the virus. But what I'm talking about right now is is the lockdowns and the mandates and all of that stuff. That there's really almost no other policy in my lifetime that you could compare it to where it's it's it upended so many people's lives, tens, if not hundreds of millions of people in the country. And almost nobody escaped it unscathed completely. There's almost nobody you know whose life wasn't at least somewhat affected by COVID in some way. There's, you know, like literally you'd have to go to people who are like really live in rural lifestyles, you know, to have been completely unaffected by it. And anyway, so there's a and this guy was the face of it. Now, again, like I said, for me personally, this was also a time where I kind of made my bones in the industry and my show took off and my profile took off. And a lot of it was over this over this issue, you know, I was I was going on Rogan's podcast man at the height of COVID and we were going so hard against this. And it was a crazy time. You know, it was a crazy time. I remember little you got to understand for me, you know, I was just, you know, really just starting to to bubble up a little bit in my career and all the sudden I'm on Rogan's podcast and Fauci and President Biden are directly responding because of the misinformation that we put out on the show. And you know, anyway, for me, it was just it was a thing that I took a very hard stand on. It was a very big issue. It became like this national thing. I was on a lot of the biggest shows, you know, about it did a lot of debates about the topic. And now six years later, to see this guy, this pathetic little demon come back testifying before Congress or before Senate committee. He's been given a pardon. You know, it's like it's this guy talked. He was so as he was filling the role of being, you know, the face of selling the totalitarianism with pseudoscience bullshit justifications. I mean, he spoke with such certainty. He lectured the rest of us. He very casually told, you know, with no problem told the rest of us. We just didn't understand science. And that's why you plebs we're going to have to give up Christmas for the third year in a row. That's why you couldn't have a funeral for your dad. That's why you couldn't go see your suicidal depressed aunt. You know, like, I mean, millions of real stories like this that why your, like, autistic son's special needs school ought to be shut down. And he's justifying it off this science. And then it gets revealed that he has completely foolish at the whole time to cartoonish levels. Um, it's now been revealed. It's a slam dunk. And he comes back and pleads the fifth. Just absolutely torches his own credibility proves all of us critics of him right. And, and just let's you know that he cannot answer these questions because they, they really might even with an auto pen goddamn pardon, his lawyers are going, we're not comfortable with you asking, answering these questions because they might incriminate you criminally. That's what's going on here. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Goldback. If, if you haven't watched my interview with Jeremy Corden, he's the CEO over at Goldback, click over and watch that. It's a, it was a really good interview. It was one of those ones that stuck with me. Um, there's a lot of problems that we have in this economy that we talk about on the show all the time. Right up there at the top is the debatement of the currency. And that's the problem that Goldback is trying to solve. The, the dollars lost over 99% of its value as measured in gold. Now, one of the major problems with gold is that it's not treated as money anymore. But Goldback is tackling that. They're real 24 karat gold that you can spend like cash. They're one of the most affordable ways to own fractional gold and they've already become the leading non-contribute. crypto alternative currency out there. No accounts, no fees, no data tracking, just personal person transactions in a currency tied to gold, accepted at thousands of businesses across multiple states. So stop relying on a broken system, head to goldback.com/dave to learn more. That's goldback.com/dave. All right, let's get back into the show. And don't give me, listen man, again, some people like don't get it confused. There is a huge difference. I'm not if anyone wants to be like, oh, so you're saying if anyone ever pleads the fifth or something like that, then that means that that's evidence of their guilt or something. But it's like, now dude, the idea of the fifth amendment is to protect people from a tyrannical government. Okay, that's actually kind of the idea of all the amendments if you really want to go look at them or just about most of them, most of the good ones, especially the early ones. But the idea is that if the governments trying to prosecute you, they're trying to, if the government is trying to, this is the idea of the fifth amendment, right? If the government is trying to deprive you a citizen of your liberty, then you have certain rights before they can just take your liberty away. And one of those rights is that you have the right to not incriminate yourself, right? Okay, that's, that's very different from saying a government employee has the right to not incriminate himself when being asked questions about depriving all of the American people of their basic rights. It's pretty obvious to see what a basic provision that is. But look, we're going to go through some of the hearing here. I don't know, you know, what else to say about this? It's infuriating to look back on it. It's also, there is something cathartic about it. It was, it's crazy how in the span of really a few short years because if you go back to, you know, I say it was six years ago, but really it was even less than that because through in, you know, the summer of 21, five years ago, Fauci had was absolutely on top. Biden was in now and he was running the vaccine mandate regime and he was, you know, I mean, like he was on top of his game. And then it was like a full year after that where it had started to crack. And then by a full year after that, a lot of people had woken up to the bullshit. This was only a few years ago between when he was, well, let's just play before we even get into this, right here, Natalie? Let's play the famous clip, which we've played before on the show in a bunch of people I've seen. Let's play the doctor Fauci, the second to last clip that I sent you there, Natalie, that Dr. Fauci on the science. This was him during his reign. This was actually him when it was starting to crack a little bit. Hold on. No, no, no, not this one. I wanted to play the, it's like the second to last clip, I think, but I had sent you in the clip. Yes, this one right here. There we go. Anybody who's looking at this carefully realizes that there's a distinct anti science flavor to this. So if they get up and criticize science, nobody's going to know what they're talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there's a person there. So it's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science. Anybody who's looking at. All right. So there you have it. This is what Fauci would say. And again, this is just a little taste. You know, there's a million of these. There's a great, you know, of course, Tom, oh, God, I'm liking on, I'm sorry. This is terrible. But what's his name? My favorite Twitter follow. Sorry. I'll look it up right here. Tom, Tom Elliott. I'm sorry. I'm my apologies. Tom Elliott, the Twitter account is great on this. And then Maze. There's an Maze, I think is the account. They're great on these, they put out these compilation videos of Fauci and you can just see all the stuff. But you know, just to remember to remind everybody, you know, and this is part of the reason, a really substantial part of the reason why there's there's so much love and camaraderie amongst all of us who were, you know, opponents of the, of the COVID, the tyranny who were against the lockdowns and the mandates and the stupid vaccine and all of the just mass absolute delusional hysteria. I mean, it's like hard. It was a moment of society losing their minds, led from the top, like with all of the people at the top trying their best to make the people crazy, like pushing this mass psychosis on the people to the point that, I mean, I remember being in it and, you know, I had like, like a two year old at the time and being at like a playground in, in, and you know, there's parents there masking up their three year old. This is like in 2022. You know what I mean? Like we had all, we had been living with COVID for two years. We had all kind of figured out what it was. We had all had it and gotten over it. We had all, like, and they're still, you know, like, and they'd be giving me looks like you really, you got your two year old here without a mask and you're like, look, I put a mask on my two year old, like are you insane? They're just crazy thing. It's sweat and it was led from the top. And okay, so this is, anyway, my point is the reason why all of us who fought against that have so much love for each other and the reason why all of us get so angry about this shit and say things like this guy needs to be in prison and just how there has to be a huge reckoning for what happened is that it's not just that the government overnight essentially instituted totalitarianism. And they went, hey, we're unlocked that they actually just look, I'm, I'm like a hardcore libertarian. I've probably had like 40 books on libertarianism in my life, which is a weird thing to do, granted, admitted, not a brag, but I'm really into it. But at all of these like, like far too many conversations and debates and read books about like what exactly it means to be a free society and what the role of government ought to be. And all of these things that people in that who are interested in that type of thing think about a lot. But even for people who don't think about that stuff at all, most people in the United States of America just took for granted that like we're a free country, that means something like the government can't just say it's illegal to go to work tomorrow. They can't just like arbitrarily divide us into essential and non-essential Americans and then say the essential ones are first class citizens with rights to work and the non-essential are second class citizens who don't have the right to work. They can't just like institute in a partied system where like vaccinated people can go to nix games, but unvaccinated people are not allowed to go, okay, but they did all of that. You know, we had this idea that they weren't allowed to do it, but they did do all of that and they did it at least starting with the lockdowns overnight. And so they're instituting this totalitarianism. It's based off bullshit. The science is absolutely ridiculous, not a leg to stand on, which is why even Fauci in his emails and journals is totally contradicting what he was saying publicly. Okay, but then as if that wasn't bad enough, this is what really gets us angry. I mean, the first part's pretty bad. The whole totalitarianism based on bullshit part is bad. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to downplay that part. That had an effect for sure. But then on top of that, to add insult to injury, when any of us would like just ask the most common sense questions, make the most common sense point, take apart the obvious bullshit in the narrative, which was not that challenging to do. When we would do that, this motherfucker's role was to get on TV and bash us. Like it's not like he was getting on there to explain the science. He was getting on there to even in this little clip, and you could see it in those, those montages that I referenced before, just over and over and over again, he'd get on there to tell you immediately that all the people criticizing him hate science. And they're really just anti-scientific, you know, morons who don't know what they're talking about. But meanwhile, we were calling the whole thing right the entire time. Meanwhile, if you right now were to go and put my track record versus Fauci's track record, I got probably a score of like 98% of it right, and he got maybe 2%. I mean, it was like with every little thing. And now of course, it's been revealed. But he knew that he didn't, he wasn't just getting it wrong. He was lying. And so, and by the way, it doesn't have to be my record, put Rogan's record up against him. By the way, as I know, I've brought up over the years, but I'm sorry if this happened to you, you'd probably bring it up a few times too. But so when I was on Rogan, one of at the time, this was like the biggest thing that had ever happened to me or the biggest thing I was ever part of. But one of the episodes I was on Rogan, and I'm trying to see if I can remember this exactly correctly. But it was, so this is Duran Biden, this was during the vaccine mandates. And at one point, me and him, I had said, I forget the exact thing. And it wasn't about me. It was about what he was saying, because they were flipping out, obviously, over the biggest media guy being totally against their narrative. And heroically, you know, kind of bringing that information to the masses, if you ask me. And I said I would never give the vaccine to my kids. I guess maybe, I don't know if my son had been born at that time. But I said I would never give it to my kid or kids. And I was like, it was still an experimental vaccine at the time. And it was very clear. I mean, this was years into COVID. It was super clear that kids just weren't at risk of the thing. Kids didn't have negative outcomes from COVID. It is almost impossible, like statistically impossible, to find kids that didn't have like severe underlying health conditions, who had any negative outcomes with COVID. And so I would was like, why would I give them an experimental vaccine for something that's not a problem? And then Joe, being the ballsy motherfucker, he is, he took it a step further. And people may not respect this, but at the time it was ballsy. He went, he goes, I'd recommend to young people, I wouldn't recommend you get the vaccine. I'd recommend just be really healthy, eat really good, get outside, you know, like be really healthy. Now this is what Fauci responded to. This is what Biden responded to. They called us out for spreading misinformation. And now, at the time, Fauci said he went on a whole thing where he called us out for spreading misinformation. And then he said, what Joe Rogan doesn't understand is young people don't get vaccinated for them. They get vaccinated for the old people because if they get the vaccine, they can't pass the virus on. So for the record in hindsight, Joe Rogan's advice was for young people to get really healthy. And Fauci countered with, if you get the vaccine, you can't get the virus and pass it on. Joe Rogan's take aged like wine. It is undeniably great medical advice. In fact, in the United States of America in 2026, the best medical advice you could get is to be healthy and have a healthy lifestyle. And Fauci's claim was demonstrably proved wrong. Oh, by the way, and his diary is proved that he knew they were wrong when he was making them. Yeah, the diary entry when he said is from before that. So like, what can I say, just just devastating, like there actually is no question at this point. Anyway, I want to go, let's play here. So Fauci spoke for five minutes and then didn't answer a single question, pled the fifth to every single question that was asked the whole rest of the thing. So yeah, you know, Rob had speculated the other day if Fauci was going to come in looking like a Muller, like a slow old man, I thought there was a chance of that. I did not think he was just going to plead the fifth the whole time, but he didn't look like a slow old man. He looked like he hasn't lost a step, which makes you hate him even more hard, hard to hate senile people. But here, let's play his five minutes that he said, this is the only thing he said besides pleading the fifth, but we'll play some of the other moments. They are, I got to say, I can't even put into words how appalled I was by this opening. It's everything that is wrong with the country and the government and the ruling elite. But here he is. Here is this little weasel all these years later, having not only been proven wrong about everything that he said with certainty, not only proved wrong about everything he said with certainty while demonizing huge percentage of the American people who stood up and pointed out that he was wrong about everything, not only being after proven wrong about everything, but now being proven to be a liar about the false public statements he was making in defense of government totalitarian policies. Here is his Fauci's statement. Well actually, I guess we're going to hear Rand Paul's opening, Fauci's five minutes and then into a little bit more Rand Paul, but we'll go through all of it and we'll pause where necessary. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The accusation that the committee has denied access to the minority to records is categorically false. This is the most transparent investigation in the history of Congress. We actually created a website and we put all of the information on the website. It continues to operate. The reason it hasn't been accessed is no Democrat ever signed up for it. Not one Democrat. We told them the access. They never asked for the access code. They haven't been on the website because they have not cared about the investigation. As a practice of this committee to swear in the witness, Dr. Fauci, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth? >> Here you can skip ahead a little bit Natalie, I apologize. >> Yeah, just at the beginning of him talking, that's fine. >> Member Peters, members of the committee. I served at the NIH for over 54 years, 38 of those as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Over that period, I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate congressional oversight. In fact, I testified before and/or briefed Senate and House Committee's well over 200 times over those 38 years. During and after the COVID pandemic, I have appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House, usually under oath and sat for several days long transcribed sworn interviews, answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing. However, given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up in his words, quote, "behind bars." All right, so let's pause it right here. Let's pause it right here and really just take this apart for a second. First of all, the claim comes in, and I love this at the beginning where it goes like, "Okay, first of all, I've been in public service for so many years, okay? This is one of the worst things about the government. They create these, I've been in public service, and so in some ways you're like beyond your approach, you know? You've been in public service, like as if we're somehow to believe that they're all servants to us, somehow they've been serving you loyally for years." You know, let's take for example my dentist, okay? My dentist happens to be a really good guy, good dentist too, really good guy, like the guy. He's a fan of the show too, so you might hear this. So my dentist though, like he's real good guy, he's real good dentist. I like him a lot, he's probably, I don't know, maybe 15 years older than me. He's probably been in dentistry for a good 20, 25 years, but if you would just never hear him going off on how he's dedicated his whole life to the service of teeth and the service of other people and that, because of that, you have to recognize what a great person he is, you know? Like if someone were to talk to you like that, like right away you'd be like, "I don't know, dude, he's been a dentist for 25 years. He's probably got a net worth of $4 million and he's got a beautiful summer home and a beautiful house. It has made a beautiful career for himself." And like, by the way, that's not doubting that he's done service. A lot more service than someone working at the NIH has, like he's actually repaired people's teeth when they needed it. Like he's done a service to the community, but at the same time we go, "Yeah, dude, but you get paid for that service. You don't just do that out of the goodness of your heart. You're a self-interested creature and you're making your money." Okay, that's just a net worth of like $15 million. Just sit here and tell me about this service that he has. He's such a servant. Well, you're just a, what, I don't know, a ruler, but, you know, you make 40 grand a year and he's worth 15 million. So I don't know. First of all, that's a bunch of bullshit. And then he's going to sit here and say, "Well, I've testified. I respect, you know, congressional oversight because I've testified a whole bunch of times before." Yeah. And that's what's in question when you lied before Congress, which has now been demonstrated once again, by these diary entries. And so, oh, I respect the oversight of Congress. You know, it's like if I went to a court and I went to all my court appearances and then they found the murder weapon and then I came in and said, "Well, you know, I've obviously demonstrated that I respect the court of law, but I'm just not doing this one. I'm sorry." Like, okay, well, then that kind of defeats all the previous ones. And so, you know, and then what can you say, man? What can you say about this is his claim? Listen, man, there are, there are at least like five or six bomb shells in the diary entries, including one entry where he writes that they did gain of function. Well, he doesn't write gain of function. He actually writes a G-O-F, but he goes, "We funded G-O-F research at the Wuhan lab." And he testified, under oath before Congress, that they didn't fund gain of function research. So unless he can come up with G-O-F standard for something other than gain of function research, which I guess is possible, but it sure seems like that's a, okay, that's a big one. Him admitting that the vaccine didn't, that the vaccine waned not only against preventing infection, but against serious injury from infection. He knew that way, but when he was saying the exact opposite and berating us for being anti-scientific, like there's all types of lies that were clearly demonstrated. So then he goes, his response is, oh, Rand Paul's like totally obsessed with me, what? Rand Paul's just like totally obsessed with me. Well, okay, but that's like, what can you say about this? You're just like a chick in high school. You're the face of the pandemic response. That's a reasonable thing to be obsessed with if Rand Paul is obsessed with this. Like like saying, you're obsessed with the Kennedy assassination or obsessed with 9/11 or you're obsessed with the war in Iraq or something. It's like, well, yeah, we should have justice for all those things. I don't know. And it's just, and then for him to say it's just to embarrass me. Well, think, okay, listen, and I say all that because this is the most important part of all of that. But just think about this guys. Think about this. When you plead the fifth amendment, you're saying I am exercising my right to not criminally implicate myself. You're not saying I'm exercising the right to not embarrass myself. So for him to go out here and say Rand Paul is just trying to embarrass me. So I'm going to plead the fifth makes absolutely no sense that that's an absurd thing to say. And for him to sit here and say, well, Rand's trying to make good on his promise that I'll end up in prison. And that's why I have to plead the fifth. Well, I'm sorry, but that does not follow. There's a real admission in there. That's what? Okay. So if you answer these questions, what he'll make good on his promise that you will end up in prison. So you know, I'm sorry, but we have now, I mean, this is, this is as open shut objective, like obvious analysis as you can get to the point that literally anyone disagreeing with this statement can be dismissed as just being bad faith that we objectively have it on record that you were saying you were writing different things in your diary, things that contradict your public statement at the time when you were on the you were on the Corona task force response team. And you were nationally the face of the thing after this long career at the NIH. Yeah, that's reason that's reasonable questions to ask. That's not, oh, you're just trying to humiliate me. That's not something to plead the fifth amendment over. So just total, I mean, just the level of entitlement. And also, I would just, I would just point out before we play the rest of his opening, I would just point out here, what a disgusting person Fauci is. You know, if nothing else, right? Fauci got a whole lot wrong. And he's admitted this, you know, he's admitted, he based his whole thing on the six foot rule. And he's admitted that that was not based on science, that that came out of nowhere. It was just kind of something that appeared and we just started going with that. Um, he straight up said, if you get the vaccine, you can't get the virus and you can't spread the virus, you know, like even if you're being the most charitable, let's say you're the biggest Fauci fan in the universe. He was just trying to help. He's a loyal public servant. Okay, even you have to admit that was wrong. That was bad information. And real things happened as a result of that. Like, in other words, when you tell someone, forget, forget even my, you know, attitude about the government tyranny. Let's just say the actual germ itself, the virus, Fauci told a whole bunch of people, if you get the vaccine, you can't get it. You can't spread it. Do you know how many people maybe wouldn't have gone and seen their grandma? You know, like would have made a choice, but they were like, no, I got the vaccine. I'm protected. And then when like people died from the virus because of Fauci, obviously people died from the lockdowns, people died from people died from the riots that happened as a result of the lockdowns, people died from the economic, you know, like, but no matter what, even if you're being really generous to Fauci, he messed up a lot. He got a lot wrong. And there is not even a sense of contrition about that. And the fact that he was like, think about the Joe Rogan example, the fact that he was mocking people and smearing them as they got it right. Well, he got it wrong. And he doesn't go up here with an ounce of, you know, apologetic tone or much less, actually, give an apology for some of the things he got wrong. No, Rand Paul's totally obsessed with me for releasing these diaries that, that embarrass me. That's truly the real victim of COVID tyranny. This is Tony Fauci. Now, let's keep playing. Person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion. Therefore, although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you. We will now begin a round of questioning. Dr. Fauci, your testimony today is compelled by lawful subpoenaum. As you know, it's a crime under 18 USC Section 101 to knowingly make a material false statement to Congress with the penalty up to five years of imprisonment, understanding that you are under oath, the American people would like to understand your reasoning, your rationale for why you chose to fund the research in Wuhan. There have been intelligence agencies, the CIA, the FBI, the DOE have all come to the conclusion that more likely than not, the virus came from the lab in Wuhan, and so we'd like to know what was the rationale, what was the discussion, what went behind the decision to fund the research in Wuhan, how did you come to the conclusion that a totalitarian country would be capable of doing this in a BSL-2 lab, a lab that lacked the security, what was the reasoning? Are you sorry basically for making this decision, would you, you know, given another chance, say, well, gosh circumstances, now as I know, maybe it wasn't a wise thing. Can you explain to the committee why you chose to fund the dangerous research in China? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer. All right, so there you go. Okay, so here we can stop the clip here, and it continues on like that forever. Every question that he's asked, this is his response. And you know, I mean, look, what can I say? I mean, you'd be the judge. But think about like how reasonable the question that Dr. Paul just asked, um, uh, uh, Fauci was like, why did you fund this lab where the virus almost certainly came from? You know how reasonable a question it is for the American people to demand an answer to that question. And, and, and here, I mean, I'm sorry, you know, you, somebody tell me if I'm wrong, I'd love to argue this with someone, but you're going to tell me, you know, it's, it's, again, this is why I mentioned the personal stuff because it's hard not to because it is just kind of surreal. You know, I remember when, and again, don't get me wrong. A lot of people throughout history have risked their lives to stand up and tell the truth. So I'm not brave. And neither is anybody else in the podcast or class. But there were, you know, it was a crazy time. It was very unpopular to stand up against this guy. You were really, he was treated as if he was like an entity above politics. You know, this wasn't a politician. This was as he just told you in that clip we played. This was the science. Or I'm sorry, man. Like you could have your arguments with Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell. But if you have an argument with, with Tony Fauci, you just have a problem with science. This is a religious, you know, the, the claim was. And okay, so in, in this time, the people who did stand up and criticized that guy, they really risked censorship and deplatforming a lot of people. A lot of people's careers were really damaged off of it. There was tremendous pressure on all of us who opposed the thing. And I must say it's kind of indicating to see, here's later, the man, none short of the man, Anthony Fauci himself sitting there while Rand Paul asks him, why did you fund the lab where this virus was made? And Dr. Fauci looks into the camera and says, I can't answer that because you can't force me to criminally incriminate myself. Ain't that something. Let's jump. Let's jump. There were some, some good other clips of, of Congressman Grille and him. And obviously he's not going to answer any questions. Spoiler alert. We already know that. But here, let's jump to the, to the next clip, Natalie. You know, what I can't quite figure out is that why you were so obsessed with it because you're already rich. I mean, in your, your scheme worked here. I mean, you're not worth now is in north of $12 million. You got over a million dollars in cash awards during COVID, during a 12-month, 24-month span during COVID, a million bucks. You knocked down in cash money using federal resources. Now you're worth more than $12 million. You've got a pension that in its first year paid out, north of $400,000 a year. A million people, dad, you're getting rich. A million people, people dead, you're using federal employees to get cash awards for you. A million people dead and you're here taking the fifth because you don't want to admit that what really happened in all that time was a multi-month, multi-year course of self-dealing. Isn't that true, Dr. Fauci? - On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. - Yeah, well silence is admission. And here's the real saying. At the end of the day, it wasn't just about the money, really wasn't. It was really about a power trip. I mean, through all of this, you want to be the most famous scientists in the world. You were so focused on getting every award and every drop of cash that you could, all because you wanted to be on TV, you wanted to be the son god of science, you wanted to be the guy who was in charge of it all, you wanted to blambass Trump, you wanted to make sure that nobody else stole your spotlight, you wanted to be the guy. You had time to sit for in-style magazine. Here's what you were doing with your time. You could sit for in-style magazine, but you can't answer questions for the American people. You could sit for in-style magazine, but you're here taking the fifth. You could sit for in-style magazine and get a million bucks and cash awards. But now the cat's got your tongue. I bet he does. I tell you what, here's my conclusion from all of this. This was really all about you the whole time. Somewhere along the way, you lost your way. You may have been a good public servant on that. >> Right, we can bail on this. >> I can tell you from, listen, I don't get me wrong. I understand this is all political theater, but that right there, that was a good political theater. And I really like it being used against him. Don't get me wrong by the way, guys. I do notice, I notice all the congressmen who weren't good on this issue at the time, who were there, who now try to look really good. Don't get me wrong, I see Ben Shapiro. We all know Ben Shapiro was saying, get the vaccine, dopes, and lecturing his own audience and stuff. But now when it's real easy, he'll be knocking Fauciio. He was always against the lockdowns or whatever. I know there's a lot of people who come over and jump on board late in the game. This is, by the way, happens on every single issue that's, every controversial political issue, if you take an unpopular stance, which I've done on several pretty big ones, the same dynamic happens where like there, you say something, it's radioactive to say it. People freak out at first and then a few years later, it's just like what I mean, it's hard to overstate the how non-radioactive and just obviously true it is to say that people got vaccine injured from the vaccine. But man, you couldn't say this on YouTube a few years ago, we literally had to dance around this, they'd kick, they'd boot you off, like you could not say anything and they were actually explicit about that, you can't talk about whatever vaccine conspiracies or something. Now we find out, Fauciio himself most likely was vaccine injured, certainly appears that way. And obviously we know lots of other people were. There were lots of things like that that you just like, okay, so whatever, these things that were very hard, anyway my point is just that this always happens. You know, I remember my God when I went on Rogan, the first time I, so I guess this was, you know, it was during those years, during the COVID years, it was like I would, when I would go on Rogan show, it would, we would all talk a lot of stuff about COVID and lockdowns and the vaccine and then the Ukraine war started. And I went on there and it was my first time talking about the war in Ukraine on the show. And the thing went, it went super viral. Oh my God, the reaction from like back then this was before Elon Musk thought Twitter and turned it into X and back then the like blue check journalist. Oh my God, the reaction was insane. Now you can make these points about the origins of the war in Ukraine. It's just not like radioactive anymore. These things, people, you know, the bullshit propaganda campaigns wear off and then the truth becomes a little bit more obvious and then it's not so radioactive. And then all of a sudden everybody's saying it and then even half the people who are on the other side back then are now on your side behind you growing. Yeah, and you're like, hey, but for a moment like this, I don't care. For a moment like this, I don't even care if it's political theater or if they're, you know, whatever he should, this should happen to that guy. There is, look, we're not, and I'll probably say something about this at the end of the show, we're probably not going to get any more justice than this. You know, and that's, there's a lot to be said on that. But there is something really valuable to this, to that moment that you just watched because that is mortifying for Anthony Fauci and you can see it all over his face. There's absolutely humiliating for him to have to sit there and take that and then plead the fifth like a bitch, like a bitch that that's mortifying. And it's important that tyrants like him get put in situations like that so that other would be tyrants see that and know that that could happen to you. So I'm for using all the political theater, and that's a great way to do it right there. Yeah, you got time to sit for photo shoots, but you can't answer questions before a Senate subcommittee to the American people about the origins of the virus that led to the biggest pandemic and the crazy response that you ushered in and recommended on record recommended. You can answer questions about that, but you could take glam shots, okay. And then what do you do? You sit here and plead the fifth and look, there's just no again, look, man, you're a private citizen, you're a private person, you're running a private business here, whatever life you do, if you're in the private sector and the government is trying to deprive you of your God-given liberty, then hell yeah, they have no right, you have the right to your privacy, you have the right to not incriminate yourself. You don't answer any questions to the feds, but I'm sorry, you're a man in the arena, you take real political power, you make recommendations to shut down civilization, you make recommendations to shut down economies, to shut down schools, and you brag about how your recommendations are being followed, you know, you answer your fucking questions like a man type of bitch coward shit is this don't get me wrong. I understand as does every single person watching this show right now, I absolutely understand by Anthony Fauci's lawyers recommended that he plead the fifth to every question. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't and that's what lawyers do. They advocate on behalf of their client to keep them out of jail. And so of course, they'd tell you not to answer the questions, but Fauci could be a man. He could be a man and answer that question. He had that option every time you don't have to follow counsel's advice. That's advice. They work for you right there in that moment. He could have stood up and said something, but you know, that is true. And it should also be, you know, mentioned that, you know, when I say he's worth 15 million dollars, I guess whatever I'd see in $15 million reported, but the Senator says 12 either way my point stands and when he says, oh, you made a million dollars during COVID, just to be clear, that is just what we know about. And the way the law is constructed, he does not have to disclose money that he's gotten from pharmaceutical companies. And he's mentioned that under oath, he's said as much. And then he goes, he goes, yeah, I've got him. That's the way the law is. I don't have to disclose them. He goes, I know some of the checks were for like 15 cents, but he didn't tell us what the other ones were for. So just to be clear, we don't know. I mean, that's outrageous enough, but he may have made a lot more than that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, the underwear of legends, I've been telling you about these guys for years. They've been a long time sponsor of the show and I love them because the product is just unbelievable. It is the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever own. Get yourself a pair of sheath. You'll never wear anything else. That's what I did. The only underwear I ever own, sheath.com, the best pair of boxer briefs you will ever get and long time sponsor of this show who deserve to be supported. Go there, sheath.com, make sure to use the promo code problem. That'll get you 20% off your entire order, sheath.com, promo code problem. Here let's, let me see which one I want to do because we got a few more. I don't know. For all of them, all right, let's, you know what? Let's do the, let's go to the Bernie Moreno, who I did not know. He kind of made a name for himself off of this again, political theater. I don't trust politicians, but I did like with this guy say, this is the, who the fuck do you think you are one Natalie? Let's play that clip. It was about six years ago today that I decided I'm going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run to the United States Senate. Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the fuck do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country, and if my Democrat colleagues are standing there defending you, I hope the voters, the United States of America watch the clips of every one of you doting on a guy who is more interested in being a celebrity than saving American people. will make it my mission to make certain that every single one of those Republicans, Democrats who did that, will see that clip over and over and over again, because there is no defense of what you did. You may have had a 50 plus year legacy of public service, but it ends in total and complete disgrace. Man, I got to say I love that. And I don't know anything else about that guy, but man, that one really won me over. It's not too often a senator really wins me over like that. All right, I guess maybe we'll do one more. You know, there's one more clip of a, I think, no, hold on, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry. I thought I had another clip of that guy, but I don't. Well, look, I mean, I guess we'll all ramped for the rest. We don't need any more clips. All right, let's say let's start with this. So what do we do now? You know, it's easy to be hyperbolic in moments like this, so I'm trying not to be, but when you really just start to look at it, you go, I'm not, yeah, I remember in the debate I did with Chris Cuomo, which was, you know, a big thing, like I've, as I've said, people still come up to me about this debate everywhere I go, man, people still, I still get, thank you for kicking Cuomo's ass everywhere I go. And, you know, it was, it was nice to do it. It was very easy. It was, you know, man, in hindsight, I can't believe he agreed to do it. I mean, it was after the whole thing, you know, it was after COVID was done. We debated COVID and it's just so, it was so impossible to defend the track record that they had, but he tried to. And one of the first things early in the debate, you know, I said, and I knew what I was doing when I said it, but I referred to the lockdowns, I believe, as the totalitarian lockdowns. And then he said, look, he goes calling the lockdowns totalitarian. That's hyperbally, you know? And I responded by saying, look, man, you had lockdowns. You had a situation in America where regular people across the country, like like in almost any state you could picture with very, very few exceptions, like not in South Dakota, but almost everywhere else, right? Like even in Florida, in Texas and the plates that's opened up quicker at a point, you had a state where regular Americans were turning on the TV every day. I know if you were a New Yorker, if you lived in New Jersey, if you lived out every day, the governor was giving daily addresses. And you would turn on your TV every day to find out from the governor what you were allowed to do today, down to, am I allowed to visit my grandma who's dying of stage four bone cancer? Like am I allowed to visit her and be with her in her last moment? Am I allowed to go to work? Can we have a funeral for my uncle? Can my kid go back to school like down to the most intimate, down to am I allowed to have Thanksgiving dinner this year? Like the governor was letting the citizenry know what they were allowed to do every day. And including by the way, every last thing that I just listed at a period of time was, no, you're not allowed to do that. Every last one of those things. I'm sorry, the only word for that is totalitarianism. Like, well, then what does the word mean? If a government ever were to go to totalitarian, then how would, like, what's the point of that is not hyper, that's not hyperbole. That is, that's just what the word means. And if you couldn't describe that situation as totalitarian, then none of, okay, so that's what we're talking about. We're talking about totalitarianism sweeping this country, being demonstrably shown to have been sold off of lies, not bad information, but lies. We see that from the diary. This guy knew he was not delivering the science as he claimed anyone disagreeing with him was disagreeing with science. And so we have that. And then this guy, who wielded this government power, gets to come in and plead the fifth. I mean, this is spitting in the face of the American people. And like, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know, I've heard lawyers make arguments about the constitutionality of Biden's auto pen blanket pardons or whatever. But hey, man, this is a pretty profound crime. This is what you might call inextenuating circumstance. Prosecute him anyway, test it, take him before the American people, you know? But here's the thing, we all know none of that's going to happen. We all know none of that's going to happen. And so everybody, including these Republican senators who are so, you know, you know, now that it doesn't matter anymore, they will give us this great moment of political theater. You know, now that Ben Shapiro isn't calling anyone, it doesn't take the vaccine to dope anymore. You know, now that the moment's cooled down, they'll, you know, we get some good commentary out of some of these people. But how about holding the Trump administration accountable for protecting the guy? The same Trump who's responsible for him being the face of the pandemic response to begin with. How about that? You know, for all of us, and by the way, there were, I made the point that Fauci didn't apologize. I wasn't apologetic at all throughout the whole thing. Several of the Republican senators made that point as well. Where's Trump's acknowledgement that maybe he was wrong to keep this guy on? I mean, he said something the other day, like I wouldn't have kept him if I knew what I knew. Okay. Well, we all knew I had to take you so long to figure it out. We have figured out Fauci was a fraud way before Joe Biden came in. But you know, look, man, the Donald, the Trump administration in his first term, Donald Trump is respite. COVID happened on his watch and he's the one who kept having those briefings and letting Fauci get up there and talk to the people and he made him, you know, he put them on the task force. He made him the face of the response to the whole thing. I mean, that's on Trump. So you did this. You enabled this liar, this little demon to come, you know, recommend all these totalitarian measures. And now you're going to allow him to come in here and just plead the fifth and get away with it. I mean, we've got him dead to rights online to Congress, the open and shut case. You know, so I'd say this will be one more test for the Trump administration. Again, they're not going to do anything about this. I guess my thing would just be to pressure all of the people as this almost, you know, in some ways, like I was saying the other day, when the topic of COVID comes up, it almost feels like we're getting the band back together and there's a bunch of people who were good on COVID who have all gone in their different political ways over the last few years. But for all you guys, like who were great on COVID, who were my brothers and sisters in arms as we shouted at the top of our lungs against, you know, this insanity. Come on guys, like where's the consistency here? Like why would we not, you know, look Donald Trump hasn't delivered on anything else. But why not put some pressure on him to deliver on this one? And in many ways, you know, for all of the, for all of the political figures who should be, you know, held criminal, criminally responsible for their actions and man, there's a long list in the 21st century already, but this guy's got to be the absolute top because, because, you know, all the reasons I mentioned at the beginning, like this was legit totalitarianism. And he was the guy who stood up there and said, no, no, no, there's a scientific basis to all of this when he knew there wasn't. I knew exactly what he was doing. And as was pointed out, he enriched himself quite a bit the whole way. So man, I will say it's, there's something strangely vindicating about going over all this, but it doesn't exactly leave you with a good feeling about it and that does it. But anyway, there was something positive here. There was something positive that this was the, the, the spectacle that everyone got to say. And we, we'll see, we'll see what comes from that. I will, I will see you guys tomorrow in Fort Lauderdale, really, really looking forward to it. Hope to see a bunch of you out there and then out on the road, comic Dave Smith dot com. Don't forget porch tour dot com for, for all of Rob's solo gigs because he goes around headlining when he's not opening up for me. And the members only episode, we will, it will not be normal time tomorrow, but we will get a members only episode out this weekend. Sorry, flying at that time, or perhaps, you know, the airlines will cancel my flight and then it'll be at normal time like what happened yesterday. We'll say, hopefully not. Thank you guys for listening, fuck Fauci, long live Liberty, Viva Ron Paul, peace.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Dave Smith hosts a solo episode of "Part of the Problem" and reflects on Anthony Fauci's testimony before Rand Paul's Senate subcommittee, where Fauci pled the Fifth Amendment to all questions.
  2. Smith critiques Fauci's role as the public face of COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates, arguing Fauci lied about science and demonized critics who were later proven right.
  3. Fauci's opening statement claims he respects congressional oversight but invokes the Fifth Amendment due to Rand Paul's alleged obsession and intent to prosecute him, which Smith calls absurd and self-incriminating.
  4. Smith highlights Fauci's diary entries revealing contradictions, such as funding gain-of-function research and knowing vaccine efficacy waned, contradicting his public statements.
  5. A senator (Bernie Moreno) delivers a fiery rebuke, calling Fauci's actions a disgrace and vowing to hold him accountable, which Smith praises as effective political theater.
  6. Smith criticizes the broader lack of accountability, including Trump's role in elevating Fauci, and notes Fauci's wealth accumulation during the pandemic.
  7. Smith concludes that while no real justice will likely come, the spectacle is cathartic and serves as a warning to would-be tyrants.

Summary:

In this solo episode, Dave Smith discusses Anthony Fauci's recent testimony before Senator Rand Paul's subcommittee, where Fauci pled the Fifth Amendment to every question after a brief opening statement. Smith calls the moment "surreal," reflecting on Fauci's former status as the face of the COVID-19 pandemic response and his role in justifying lockdowns, mandates, and vaccine policies with supposed scientific authority. Smith argues that Fauci's diary entries, released publicly, prove he lied about key issues, including funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan and the vaccine's effectiveness against transmission and severe illness, while publicly demonizing critics as "anti-science."

Smith criticizes Fauci's opening remarks, where Fauci framed Rand Paul's questioning as an "obsession" and a personal vendetta, arguing that pleading the Fifth implies potential criminal liability and undermines his claims of innocence. He highlights a senator's aggressive rebuke of Fauci's wealth and self-dealing, calling it satisfying political theater. Smith also faults the Trump administration for elevating Fauci and notes that despite the overwhelming evidence, real accountability is unlikely. He emphasizes that the spectacle is cathartic and serves as a warning to future tyrants, but expresses frustration that Fauci escapes consequences. The episode ends with Smith promoting upcoming tour dates and reaffirming his libertarian stance, concluding with "fuck Fauci, long live liberty."

FAQs

Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment on the advice of his attorneys, declining to answer questions to avoid potentially incriminating himself. He claimed Senator Rand Paul's investigation was aimed at embarrassing him and fulfilling a promise to see him in prison.

Fauci's diary entries contradicted his public statements, including admissions about funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and knowing the vaccine's effectiveness waned against infection and severe illness. This suggested he lied under oath, as he had previously denied these claims.

No, Fauci showed no contrition or apology during his testimony. He maintained his stance as a public servant and focused on being a victim of political attacks rather than acknowledging any mistakes.

Senator Rand Paul asked Fauci to explain the rationale behind funding research at the Wuhan lab, which intelligence agencies concluded was likely the source of the virus. He questioned why Fauci funded dangerous research in a totalitarian country with inadequate lab security.

Senator Bernie Moreno highlighted that Fauci's net worth exceeded $12 million, including over $1 million in cash awards during COVID and a pension paying over $400,000 annually. Fauci also did not have to disclose payments from pharmaceutical companies.

Dave Smith felt vindicated, noting that his criticisms of Fauci and the COVID response were proven correct. He emphasized that Fauci's lies and totalitarian measures were exposed, and he saw the testimony as a moment of accountability, though he doubted further legal consequences would follow.

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