Rep. Cawthorn slams Fauci for COVID response, said he 'directly lied to Congress'

Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn went after Dr. Anthony Fauci hard on Wednesday over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging Fauci has "directly lied to Congress."

"You can just go back and very simply look through the clips of Dr. Fauci speaking back in May or even subsequent months after that, and you can tell he has directly lied to Congress," Cawthorn told Real America’s Voice host Jenna Ellis. 

Cawthorn's comments come a day after a shouting match between Fauci and Kentucky's Sen. Rand Paul. In that exchange, Paul suggested that Fauci had lied about gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, and Fauci told the senator that he did not know what he was talking about.

During his interview, Cawthorn called Fauci "a pawn of the Chinese Communist Party," echoing similar accusations Paul made that the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of which Fauci is the director, had used American tax dollars to fund the Wuhan lab for gain-of-function research.

The North Carolina representative went further, claiming Fauci lied "to the American people just to get your name in the news, just see your face, fame, and fortune. I'll tell you, Dr. Anthony Fauci does not deserve either fame or fortune."

He then told Ellis that Fauci's handling of the virus "destroyed multiple economies in fifty states." Cawthorn added that the lockdowns destroyed small businesses, and had a negative effect on school children.