WATCH: Fauci EXPLODES on Sen. Rand Paul after being confronted about COVID-19 testimony

On the latest episode of "The Rubin Report," BlazeTV host Dave Rubin discussed Republican Sen. Rand Paul's clash with Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday over the NIH's role in funding the coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Fauci oversees several National Institutes of Health research programs.

Dave shared a video clip of the Senate Health Committee hearing over the origins of COVID-19 in which Sen. Paul accused Dr. Fauci of lying in his previous statements about NIH funded gain-of-function research being conducted in Wuhan, China.

In the clip, Sen. Paul presented the following information:

Dr. Fauci, as you are aware it is a crime to lie to Congress. Section 1001 of the U.S. criminal code creates a felony and a five-year penalty for lying to Congress. On your last trip to our committee on May 11, you stated that the NIH 'has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan Institute by Dr. Shi, and was funded by the NIH.

In this paper, Dr. Shi credits the NIH and lists the actual number of the grant that she was given by the NIH. In this paper, she took two bat coronavirus genes, spike genes, and combined them with a SARS related backbone to create new viruses that are not found in nature.

These lab created viruses were then to shown to replicate in humans. These experiments combined genetic information from different coronaviruses that infect animals, but not humans, to create novel artificial viruses able to infect human cells. Viruses that in nature only infect animals were manipulated in the Wuhan lab to gain the function of infecting humans. This research fits the definition of the research that the NIH said was subject to the pause in 2014 to 2017, a pause in funding on gain-of-function.

The Wuhan lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS related to coronaviruses able to infect human cells and laboratory animals. This is high risk research that creates new potential pandemic pathogens, potential pandemic pathogens that exist only in the lab, not in nature. This research matches … these are Dr. Ebright's words. This research matches, indeed epitomizes the definition of gain of function research, done entirely in Wuhan, for which there was supposed to be a federal pause.

Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11th, where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Dr. Fauci responded:

Sen. Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you were referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function. What was … let me finish ...

Sen. Paul interjected:

You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans. You're saying that's not gain-of-function?

Dr. Fauci replied:

Yeah, that is correct. And Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you are talking about, OK?

And then the gloves really came off.

Watch the video clip below to catch more of the heated exchange:

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