And now to go to a another war in Washington, a minor war by comparison.

Um, but it's also an example of something that's where politicians and everybody nobody nobody seems to be on the level and that's the Rand Paul Anthony Fouchy death match.

Um, there are a couple of issues to unpack here.

The Fouchy diary, which is excruciating to read.

Um, and the actual reasons that Fouchy was brought before the Senate.

Um, here's what Fouchy said about the hearing the other day.

Watch this.

Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars.

Steve, in the few minutes that we have left, um, take us inside this.

What is the motivation of Senator Paul and uh how do you judge Anthony Fouch's response to this these attacks that are made on him?

Yeah, I mean the the hearing was such a perfect encapsulation of Washington at this moment with a lot of raised voices and a lot of yelling and virtually no new information and nothing that gets us any closer to the truth.

Um look, I think Anthony Fouchi's right that Senator Paul has been obsessed.

I think Senator Paul is right that Anthony Fouchy took shortcuts and lied about things that he shouldn't have lied about.

Um, in a better with a more serious government, we would have gotten closer to answers through that hearing.

I do want to point out one person.

We probably don't do this very often enough.

Senator James Langford from Oklahoma.

He wasn't going to get answers to the questions.

Anthony Fouchy had already said that he wasn't going to answer questions, but he walked through in a calm and dispassionate way a series of questions that if we got answers to them, we'd be a lot better prepared for the next one of these.

He was unfortunately the the person who stood out because he was really the only one who did this.

Everybody else was yelling and shouting.

Right.

Right.

Susan, in the old days in a less dysfunctional Washington, maybe people would gather to do a post-mortem of of a tragic event and try to figure out better government response.

This is uh this is a little bit of a show right now.

H how do you what does it say about where we are politically in in in and in partisanship?

Yeah, I mean, look, the historical analogy that leaps to mind is not a reasonable bipartisan commission to look at uh lessons learned from a national tragedy.

It's uh a witch hunt.

Uh it's McCarthyism.

Uh you know, we do unfortunately have a long history of that as well.

And to see an 85year-old public servant who spent 50 years of his life uh combating uh uh terrible diseases in this country and around the world.

Uh, you know, it was it was a painful site.

Uh, you know, especially to see a bunch of senators uh accuse Fouchy of the best they could come up with.

Uh, you know, was a diary in which he was dazzled uh, you know, to meet celebrities and, you know, admitted that he butt dialed Barbara Straand.

You know, if Josh Holly is saying, you know, oh my goodness, you're a peacock who's seeking attention and a narcissist, right?

Uh, you know, I don't I think it you're saying that no one in the Senate should accuse anyone of being a peacock.

You know, Jeeoff, I'm what I'm saying is I found it very painful to watch as I'm sure many people did.

The person who was accountable ultimately uh for America's failed initial handling of the pandemic in 2020 was someone named Donald Trump.

Right.

But Peter, let me ask you this though.

You know in the diary Fouchi talks with nuance writes with nuance and uncertainty about the origin story of of co 19 in public especially in the beginning he was more declarative.

I mean there there this is not the Pentagon papers but it it it seems like there's a little bit of of space between what he would tell the public and what he would tell himself.

Yeah.

Yes and no.

I mean, I think they're making an awful lot out of uh out of, you know, what would be pretty normal in those early days when we did not know a lot, right?

Scientists were of multiple opinions about the origin of it.

They were multiple opinions about how it was transmitted.

And there were multiple opinions about what the best course of action was.

And yes, he probably projected more certainty than he might have felt.

But if you actually you can find statements he said in the diary and see that he said something pretty similar in public in an interview several weeks later or in some other public setting.

So, I think they're trying to slice and dice it in a way that is making uncertainty in the beginning of a pandemic into a crime.

It's not just that he was wrong, it's that he is evil and that he, you know, should go to jail.

I mean, he's literally compared to Hitler and Mangala.

This isn't a scientist who just got things wrong and maybe he did get something wrong.

This is in this case in Rampaul's world, it's good and evil.

Well, very interesting conversation.

That's all the time we have tonight.

Alas, but I do want to thank our guests for joining me and I want to thank you at home for watching us.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.

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