In May, Fauci said the National Institutes of Health had not funded “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China — a type of research that could potentially cause pathogens to become more infectious. Cruz (R-Texas) in October tweeted that Fauci was lying and added: “It’s a crime to knowingly lie to Congress, so I asked AG [Merrick] Garland if he’d appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci.“

Fauci said that the accusations are dangerous, not only to him, but the scientific community.

“It’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous,” he said. “To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I’m not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever.”

“I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying,” he added.