'It's like clockwork': Fauci points to MTG in 'pattern' of continued threats

Dr. Anthony Fauci said rhetoric from people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is to blame for continued threats against him, after a contentious House hearing Monday where Greene refused to address him with the title of "Doctor."

In the heated House hearing, Greene bashed Fauci for what she claimed was his mishandling of the COVID pandemic and policies such as masks in schools. The controversial Georgia conservative also pointedly refused to refer to Fauci as a doctor, instead using the honorific "Mister."

Fauci led the nation's pandemic response as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2022. He appeared Monday before members of the House subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic.

Hours after the hearing concluded, Fauci told CNN that Greene is part of the reason he continues to be a target post-COVID and two years after leaving government service.

"Whenever somebody gets up, whether it's a news media – you know Fox News does it a lot – or it's somebody in the Congress who gets up and makes a public statement that I'm responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus, immediately it's like clockwork – the death threats go way up," Fauci said.

While defending himself from Republican lawmakers' accusation-laden questions, Fauci spoke about the threats he, his wife and daughters have received.

"There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals and credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me," Fauci told the subcommittee.

Later he told CNN exchanges like the one had with Greene – during which she alleged, “That man does not deserve to have a license and in fact he deserves to be in prison" – are an ongoing pattern.

"When you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today's hearing," Fauci said, "those are the kind of things that drive up the death threats because there (is) a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense."

Greene responded with a post on X, formerly Twitter, Tuesday morning.

"It’s not my comments that have people furious at Mr Fauci, it’s the FACT that his ridiculous, non-scientific, tyrannical policies DESTROYED people’s lives," Greene wrote.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fauci responds to MTG after heated House hearing