Fox News contributor Marie Harf accused former President Trump and his allies of using Dr. Anthony Fauci “as a punching bag” in an effort to distract from their own failures.
Harf joined a panel discussion on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss renewed attacks on Fauci following the release of some of his emails sent during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. (RELATED: ‘Not Outrageous’ To Suggest COVID Was Engineered: Former White House Testing Czar Says There’s ‘A Lot Of CYA Going On Now’)
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Anchor Chris Wallace noted that early on, former President Donald Trump and a number of Republicans had floated the possibility that the pandemic began as the result of either an accidental or intentional leak from the Wuhan laboratory.
“There was a knee-jerk reaction from Democrats to dismiss that and the argument — and also from some of the media and at the argument in effect was if Trump says it, it can’t be true,” Wallace said, turning to Harf for her response.
“Well, a lot of things Donald Trump said weren’t true, so he didn’t have a lot of credibility with the American people, but he also talked about it in a way that many people found offensive, borderline racist,” Harf said, going on to suggest that Trump used his own racist comments as a shield to deflect from his own administration’s responsibility.
“I think what’s important of what’s happened in the past few weeks as the intelligence community did something really smart. They were released — they pulled back the curtain and said there are two working theories. Some of our analysts believe one and some believe the other,” Harf continued, arguing that both theories should be thoroughly explored.
Harf concluded by defending Fauci, adding, “Dr. Fauci did what he could to save American lives with incomplete information and the Trump administration and his allies are using Dr. Fauci as a punching bag today to deflect from their failures.”