Although he’ll soon be retiring from his role as NAIAD Director and chief medical adviser to President Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is still working overtime to spin the COVID-19 narrative. While he apparently feigned ignorance (or lack of recall) during his recent deposition in the lawsuit brought by the States of Louisiana and Missouri,

Wow! It was amazing to spend 7 hours with Dr. Fauci. The man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon "the science." Only to discover that he can't recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!

— AG Jeff Landry (@AGJeffLandry) November 23, 2022

Fauci had plenty to say when he joined Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday morning.

First, he expounded on the risks of people congregating during the holiday season, given the current prevalence of respiratory viruses. Fauci emphasized the importance of vaccinations and testing while hesitating to advocate for school closures, noting “the collateral effects” of doing so. He deftly glossed over the apparent contradiction between the White House asking Congress for an additional $10 billion in funding and President Biden declaring the pandemic over.

When the subject of possible congressional investigations was raised, Fauci waxed indignant:

MARGARET BRENNAN: There have been all these House Republican calls for investigations into the origins of COVID –

ANTHONY FAUCI: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And saying they’re going to bring you up to Capitol Hill. Do you think that wanes as you step down?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, I don’t think it’s going to wane for me. The Republican House has — has said that they’re going to. And that’s fine with me. I mean —

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ll appear?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Oh, of course. I mean, I – I’m very much in favor of – of legitimate oversight. Absolutely. I mean I’ve testified before Congress, given the 38 years that I’ve been director, literally hundreds of times in many oversight hearings.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s never been this personal for you, though. And I know when I talked to you a year ago, you — you were angry. You said, I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives, and they’re going to be lying.

ANTHONY FAUCI: They’ve clearly politicized it. I’m not political at all, period. I’ve never been. And anybody who knows anything about me knows that that’s the case. But it is very clear, when people are running their campaigns with an anti-Fauci element to it, I mean, that’s ridiculous. I mean, this is a public health issue. I’d be more than happy to explain publicly or otherwise everything that we’ve done. And I can defend and explain everything that we’ve done from a public health standpoint.

How could he be political, after all, when he’s so busy “represent(ing) science”?

Then the talk turned to the origins of COVID. Fauci made sure to run cover for China while placing the blame for their defensive posture on the Trump administration.

Fauci defends China for covering up COVID origins, blames Trump for it pic.twitter.com/U08yPQxxL5

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 27, 2022

MARGARET BRENNAN: President Biden said the United States is asking China for more data about the origins.

ANTHONY FAUCI: Yes. Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you seen anything that Beijing has produced?

ANTHONY FAUCI: No. You know, one of the – one of the problems is that — and this is historic. It goes way back to bird flu, the H5N1, the H7N9, the original SARS COV1, that the Chinese, not necessarily the scientists that we know and we have dealt with and collaborated with productively for decades, but the whole establishment of political and other establishment in China, even when there’s nothing at all to hide, they act secretive, which absolutely triggers an appropriate suspicion of like, what the heck is going on over there?

So, right now, what we would really like to know is all of the details of what went on with the original people who were infected? We keep a completely open mind as to what the origin is.

Having said that, if you look at the examination by highly qualified international scientists, with no political agendas, they’ve published in peer-reviewed journals that the evidence is quite strong that this is a natural occurrence. Does that mean we’ve ruled out that there was something funny going on, a leak? Absolutely. And I and all of my colleagues keep an absolutely open mind. We’ve got to investigate every possibility because this is too important not to do that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you seen anything that Beijing has produced at all in terms of explanation or data?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, their explanation is an explanation that they will not allow us to look at the primary information. The WHO went in and – and saw some of the data, which — some of which was actually quite helpful. But we — you know what we need, Margaret, we need a – a – a– a transparency and a collaboration to open things up so that we can discuss it in a non- accusatory way.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly.

ANTHONY FAUCI: What happens is that if you look at the anti-China approach that clearly the Trump administration had right from the very beginning, and the accusatory nature, the Chinese, they’re going to flinch back and say, no, I’m sorry, we’re not going to talk to you about it, which is not correct. They should be.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But they’re not talking to the Biden administration about it either is what you’re saying.

ANTHONY FAUCI: Exactly. I think that horse is out of the barn and they’re very suspicious of anybody trying to accuse them.

Note that he starts out detailing China’s long history of being secretive when it comes to diseases, referencing the H5N1 bird flu (which emerged in the mid-nineties). Then he veers sharply into Blame the Bad Orange Man mode, insisting the “anti-China” approach taken by the Trump administration was what prompted Chinese defensiveness. And when Brennan points out that China isn’t talking with the Biden administration about it either, Fauci lays it right back at Trump’s feet. Disregard the historical behavior and the current posture. All things point back to Trump. Of course.

Curiously absent: any mention of the recent Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Minority oversight staff report which concluded that a lab leak was the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, that the zoonotic origin theory “no longer deserves the presumption of accuracy,” and which outlined gain-of-function research at Wuhan Institute of Virology, funded by NIH via EcoHealth Alliance.

Still, it’s fascinating to see the Chinese people bravely standing up to their government, while Anthony Fauci remains singularly focused on running cover for it (and perhaps himself).