Trump attacks Fauci as Senate committee hearing proceeds

Former President Donald Trump launched a fresh public attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, as the former top infectious disease official invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer questions before a Republican-led Senate committee investigating the federal COVID-19 response. In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump defended his administration's pandemic record, criticized Fauci's judgment, and blamed President Joe Biden for a higher death toll after leaving office.

Trump described his administration's Operation Warp Speed vaccine initiative as a "spectacular success" and claimed he personally overrode Fauci's recommendations, which he called "crazy." He asserted that "many more people died of Covid under the Biden Administration than under the Trump Administration," a claim that, while numerically accurate in raw counts, does not account for the emergence of more transmissible variants like Delta and Omicron after Trump left office in January 2021. Trump reiterated his long-standing position that the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and accused Fauci of "always trying to protect China" regarding the virus's origins.