Dr. Anthony Fauci responded on Thursday night to Fox Nation host Lara Logan comparing him to infamous Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, calling her remarks “disgusting” and saying it was “striking” that Fox News had not taken any disciplinary action against her.
Logan, a once-respected investigative reporter turned right-wing provocateur, sparked intense backlash from Jewish organizations and Holocaust remembrance groups this week when she likened the nation’s top infectious disease expert to Mengele, the Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death” who notoriously experimented on Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz.
“What you see on Dr. Fauci—this is what people say to me: that he doesn’t represent science to them. He represents Josef Mengele,” she declared on Monday night, adding: “And I am talking about people all across the world are saying this, because the response from COVID, what it has done to countries everywhere, what it has done to civil liberties, the suicide rates, the poverty, it has obliterated economies.”
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Fox News has remained silent amid the brewing controversy over Logan, despite growing criticism and demands for an apology from the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee. Logan, for her part, has dug in despite the outcry, going so far as to boost attacks on the Auschwitz Museum for condemning her Nazi analogy.
Appearing on MSNBC’s All In on Thursday night, Fauci was asked by host Chris Hayes to weigh in on the Fox personality’s inflammatory remarks.
“Look, Chris, I think the response is with so many people throughout the country and the world are responding to that absolutely preposterous and disgusting comparison that she makes,” the chief White House medical adviser said.
“It’s an insult to all of the people who suffered and died under the Nazi regime in the concentration camps,” he continued. “I mean, it’s unconscionable what she said.”
Fauci also took issue with Logan’s false assertion that the death rate for COVID-19 compared “very much” to the seasonal flu.
“Forget about the fact that she was being totally slanderous to me and, as usual, had no idea what she was talking about,” he fumed. “Saying that it’s as benign as flu. When did influenza kill 770,000 Americans?!”
Fauci added: “So not only is she being slanderous and disrespectful to so many people who were killed in the concentration camps by Dr. Mengele, but she absolutely has no idea what she’s talking about. She’s completely incorrect in everything she says.”
Finally, the immunologist took Fox News to task for staying silent over the controversy and not punishing Logan, a frequent network commentator who hosts her own show on Fox’s online streaming service.
“What I find striking, Chris, is how she gets no discipline whatsoever from the Fox network,” Fauci declared. “How they can let her say that with no comment and no disciplinary action? I’m astounded by that!”
Fauci’s pointed criticism of Fox News and Logan, ironically enough, comes shortly after it was revealed that he is returning to the network’s airwaves following reports that he had been turning down Fox’s interview requests for months.
