HASAN: “You have been demonized, as I said, on the right in a kind of unhinged, dangerous manner. I just want to play you something that Ron DeSantis said you about you last year. Have a listen.”

[Clip starts]
DeSantis: “And I’m just sick of seeing him. I know he says he will retire. Someone needs to grab that little elf and Chuck him across the Potomac.”
[Clip ends]

HASAN: “I mean, I have to ask, do you consider that to be a threat from the governor of Florida? Because to me it looks like he is inciting violence. I wonder what your reaction is when you hear someone saying you should be attacked?”

Fauci: “Well, you know, it’s a complicated issue, but I have become, by people who know nothing about me, who don’t investigate what I’ve said I’ve done, I have become the symbol of what the far-right extremists feel that I am the one who had to, in an uncomfortable way, I wasn’t pleased with that, I wasn’t happy to do it, but I had to publicly disagree with the president of the United States. That was very painful for me because I have a great deal of respect for the presidency of the United States, but I felt, in order to just maintain my personal and professional integrity and my responsibility to the American public, I had to say it like it was and I had to do it publicly. That triggered a degree of negativity towards me on the part of the far-right that all of a sudden, when you have anger, in some cases, maybe justifiable anger of one ideological group against the other, you need a symbol, like, somebody has got to be the object of the anger.”

HASAN: “But it’s not just crazies. That is a man that wants to be president.”

Fauci: “No, no, what I’m saying — I’m going to get to that. What happens is that if you become the symbol of — the object of people’s anger, even people who know nothing about, you know, the fact that in my career I have been involved in saving, literally, millions of people’s lives. Hello? Forget that. I become that symbol. And then, when they say something like that, you get somebody who doesn’t know anything at all about me, who is crazy, says, ‘Wow, I’m going to get that person,’ or ‘That person should be killed or prosecuted.’ That’s the reason why I have to have security. Governor DeSantis doesn’t personally want to hurt me, he doesn’t — “

HASAN: “But he is inciting crazies.”

Fauci: “He is triggering people who are bad and really want to hurt people. That’s the problem.”

[There’s room to criticize DeSantis for that one statement, but that was months ago. Fauci resents *all* criticism and thinks he should be above it, while lying continually to avoid accountability for his actions. If you don’t want to be criticized, don’t get into politics or celebrity, and Fauci jumped feet first into both. — Ed]