After more than a year of controversy, Republicans are moving to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci through new legislation.
House Republicans announced their plans Wednesday to introduce the “Fauci’s Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal” (FIRED) Act after months of dissatisfaction with the infectious disease expert.
“Today the House GOP fired Liz Cheney,” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, wrote on Twitter. “Next, we should #FireFauci. My new bill, the Fauci’s Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal (FIRED) Act, will free Americans from his anti-science approach to the pandemic so we can restore our freedoms.”
The bill, first reported by Fox News, would impose a 12-year limit on holding the position of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director. Fauci has held the position since 1984 and would have to leave immediately.
The Center for Disease Control has also come under increasing scrutiny after issuing and changing guidance multiple times on sanitation, masks, and outdoor activities.
Former president Donald Trump appointed Fauci to help lead the fight against COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic, but soon grew to regret the decision.
Fauci quickly became politicized, doing an endless series of media interviews where he regularly criticized or undermined the former president.
“Fauci, he’s a nice guy, he’s been here for 500 years,” Trump said in October of last year. “He called every one of them wrong. And he’s like this wonderful guy, a wonderful sage telling us how … He said, ‘Do not wear face masks,’ and the number of months ago. He said do not close it up to China. Don’t…I have a list of 15 things, this guy, and yet, we keep him. Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb. But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him, but Fauci’s a disaster. I mean this guy, if I listened to him we’d have 500,000 deaths.”
