“I don’t agree with that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Meet the Press.

Collins told the Huffington Post that “we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this” if the agency hadn’t lost some of its funding in recent years.

Fauci acknowledged the spending cuts have resulted in less “robust” research, but he disagreed with the larger point.