Dr. Fauci Reacts To The Release of Thousands Of His Work Emails

morning here on the east coast joining us now is the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and chief medical advisor to the president dr. anthony

fauci

dr.

fauci

good morning good to see we want to talk about the state of the coronavirus but As you may have heard, many of your

emails

were made public in a foia request from Buzzfeed and the Washington Post, so let me ask you a couple of questions about that, in First, in April 2020, the Wuhan lab leak theory was discussed in some of his

emails

, Dr. Collins, the head of the NIH, seemed to suggest it was a conspiracy.

Did you agree at that time in April 2020 that the lab leak theory was a conspiracy theory? No, not necessarily at all, the situation is that we didn't. We don't know and we still don't know what the origin is that, if you look historically at the way things developed, we all feel, and still feel, that it is more likely a natural jump of species from one animal reservoir to However, a human being, since we don't know for sure, has to keep an open mind to be able to say that they believe one thing is more likely than the other, but the fact that it could have been something else was clearly there. was down on the list of what we thought was likely, but in fact that's why we all now say there's a considerable amount of interest in trying to figure out what the origin is and that's why we're all for it. of an open and fair investigation to see if we can actually uncover the origin because we want to make sure this doesn't happen again since those emails in April 2020, Dr.

Fatchi, have you gotten any further into the possibility of a leak theory? laboratory? you think it's more credible today than it was then you know I'm not so sure I think one of the things that has stimulated interest and I think it's important to investigate is the idea and we need to find out whether it's true or not the fact that there were some people who They

work

ed in the laboratory that got sick, we have to find out. It's true? and what was the nature of his illness? And those are things we just have to figure out.

If that's something that turns out to be an important feature, then you could say hmm, that may lean a little more towards one, but what I think people might be getting confused about is the combination of whether there's more interest in it or whether there really is more evidence. the evidence is very thin and that's why we want to keep looking for evidence of one or the other if we look historically at the way things developed the original saws kovi one seas ebola the diseases that emerge from a reservoir in an animal This It happens all the time and that's why we think it's most likely, but since we haven't shown that you have to keep an open mind and an open mind needs to, it continues to look like an open mind, not in a pejorative way. to think that they did something nefarious or what happened, just keep an open mind and take a look, and that's what everyone wants right now.

The conventional wisdom, as far as you know, is that it was zoonotic that passed from an animal to a human. there was talk of a bat at the wet market there was talk of pangolins at the wet market is there more evidence for that theory than the lab leak? In other words, aren't they both equally possible? You obviously know it when you say anything possible. It is possible and that is why I say to keep an open mind. One of the things that people need to understand is that we have to keep looking for that link of the natural jump from an animal to a human.

I think one of the things that happened at the beginning is that the scientists, you know, some people don't want to admit it, but the scientists in China, a lot of them are actually very good scientists. I think one of the things they did wrong in epidemiology is that they cleaned up the market as soon as there was this outbreak for fear that it would spread even further, that could have been an epidemiological mistake because maybe they erased the evidence of species jumping, but you still have to keep looking and that's what everyone is doing to continue. to look I have to keep emphasizing that because people who are pejorative about it and conflate different things keep saying well you believe this, you believe this, an open mind is the clearest thing we need to ask a question, you probably hear a lot, I hear a lot.

It comes from people on the street and from people who are in our program. Why is this so difficult? Why is it so difficult to find the source of this outbreak that has killed more than three million people worldwide? Six hundred thousand people here in the United States have ended our lives in our economy. Is it because China is so opaque? Is it because who wasn't sharing information? why is this so difficult? You know, there are several reasons why Willie White is difficult. I think one of the things is that we need better access to everyone.

The information, I mean, it's obviously in China's interest to know exactly what it is and the natural theory would be to find that link, so you have to keep looking for it. I mean, obviously you want openness and cooperation, one of the ways you can achieve that is: don't be accusatory, try to take a forensic, scientific, investigative approach. I think the prosecution will only set them back even further. We have to do it in a way that is a combination of diplomacy, scientific forensic investigation and do it in a way that people of good faith, not people who want to blame, but people of good faith, are really trying to find out what the origin is and we are seeing that many of you know, um.

I don't even want to describe it, a lot of finger pointing and stuff like that, keep an open mind and look for the truth. You say it is in the interest of China. Would you agree? Although it is in Dr. Fauci's best interest to hide it if there was a lab leak or worse, if they were designing something in their lab so that the world that the United States wouldn't know came out of their own lab, wouldn't they want to hide that you know, Willie, don't I want to be? speculating on that because every time I say something like that, you know as well as I do, it's going to be completely taken out of context and go into the Twitter world like crazy, so I mean I'm going to leave that to other people and not guess and guess. whose interest it is is not helpful because everything you say is taken completely out of context and it would really be like me talking about what it's like to be an NBA player.

I wouldn't know it, but I'm terrible at basketball, I mean, you deal with medicine, you deal with health, you try to study, these questions about China, I mean, that's up to the politicians to figure it out, it's up to the politicians to figure it out. . It's not in the best interest of China's leaders, uh, for this to come to light, it certainly is, and I think what you've pointed out is that it's certainly in the best interest of the Chinese people and I'm also sure that many doctors in there I want that to happen too, I just want us to be very clear about this because people love to write stories about, you know how this has changed, and since last summer, a lot of people in the mainstream media went after Tom Cotton for suggesting it could have come from a lab until this summer now people are coming after you acting like we all know for sure it came from a lab the truth is we are still looking through a glass darkly because we just don't have the data we just don't have the data.

We don't have the information and until we get that doctor we're not going to know if we're uh Joe, it was right when I finished talking to Willie about how I'm doing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was actually practicing my jump shot from behind, so go ahead. I was trying to clarify it for some of our viewers. I'm sorry. Sometimes I repeat myself. No, no, Joe. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be funny, but that's what I was saying and that's what people need to do is keep an open mind when people say it's probably a jumping species because historically that happens all the time, are we absolutely sure? until you nail? it boils down to showing a link and just because you haven't found it doesn't mean it's not there, you should keep looking for the link and you should keep looking for evidence that it's something else, like a lab league, those are open possibilities.

We may never find out what that is, but what's not helpful is that pejorative and accusatory nature rather than keeping a truly open mind, so let's talk about this summer. We had Joe Biden talking about the summer of freedom. What does summer look like for you? What does autumn look like? How is the United States doing? We are doing well. If you look at the numbers, Joe, look at what's called the weekly average on a daily basis, we've gone from several weeks to months. it does 60,000 a day 50 40 30 and now we are below 20. It's going in the right direction if we reach the goal of 70 and even more, hopefully, adults get at least one dose before the 4th of July. that would be very good, the only thing that worries me is that things look good and if you look at that graph of the cases that are decreasing, people will stop getting vaccinated and, although we are doing very well with the vaccines, we don't want to declare victory prematurely, we really want to catch this Joe, we don't want to say well, you know, cases are going down, we don't need to vaccinate, you should vaccinate as many people as you can if possible.

I really want to crush this on everyone, uh, Dr. Anthony Fauci, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for coming to my exclusive interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the notable women at the inauguration. Forbes 50 out of 50 list Morning Joe returns in a moment