After previously promising to “cooperate fully” at any Congressional hearing on his work as Biden Administration COVID czar, Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to answer all 111 questions by invoking the Fifth Amendment – and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says he knows why.“I will enthusiastically vote to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt,” Sen. Cruz declared Friday in an appearance on the Ben Ferguson show, discussing next Wednesday’s House Homeland Security and Government Affairs vote to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions, even though he had immunity, thanks to a blanket pardon from former President Joe Biden.After Fauci refused to answer even a single question at the Senate hearing, flashback videos and reports of the COVID czar’s several 2022 comments quickly appeared in the news and on social media.“I am very happy to testify before any congressional oversight committee. I have nothing to hide. I can explain and validate everything that I’ve done,” Fauci said at the time, when the specter of being called before Congress first appeared. “I believe oversight is a very important part of government structure and I welcome it and it can be productive,” Fauci said in one of several interviews raising the issue.But, at that time, Fauci was fearless, because he knew Biden’s Justice Department would never prosecute him, Sen. Cruz said in his interview.Any contempt finding is not self-executing, so the Justice Department has to agree to prosecute it, Cruz explained:“That’s why Fauci was not worried at all about testifying before Congress as long as Biden Justice Department was there, because they will never hold him to account for anything. “He felt completely protected and immunized and safe.” I will enthusiastically vote to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt.@benfergusonshow and I break down Fauci invoking the Fifth and what’s next on latest episode of Verdict. pic.twitter.com/fGetFhwtAi— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 31, 2026

Screenshot via CBS/Snapstream After ignoring it on Thursday night, ABC and NBC finally covered on Friday morning the near-apocalyptic scenes out of the Spanish territory of Ceuta as tens of thousands of almost all young men from Africa (and who knows where else) sprint across and emerge from the sea, causing mass destruction in the downtown area.CBS, meanwhile, covered it both times, but Friday’s CBS Mornings expressed sympathy for the unvetted “migrants” and suggested they simply want a better life.It was after a report from Spain that featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers interjected to weigh in with some of his own thoughts.After acknowledging the Spanish Prime Minister has “[said] that they’re speeding up repatriation of the migrants who have entered Cueta, irregularly since yesterday,” he insisted “a country has the right and the obligation to control its borders,” but there has to be more consideration than border enforcement when such masses stream across claiming they’re in need. WATCH: 'CBS Mornings' co-hosts argue the thousands flooding into Spainish territory from Morocco are likely just wanting a better life and desperate for change....VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: So, we just got a statement from the Prime Minister of Spain, who says that they’re speeding up… pic.twitter.com/2BFLJdxVdD— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 31, 2026 “[B]ut when you watch thousands of people like you’re watching here on your screens willing to risk their death, willing to risk drowning just for the chance of a better life, it’s also worth asking, ‘What are they running for,’” Duthiers declared to the approval of co-host Nate Burleson and fill-in Natalie Morales.Morales backed Duthiers up: “And this is part of Spain – Cueta – this is like a 10-mile swim as well. So, you imagine the degree of danger involved. Look at these little kids on floaters out there. It’s horrific.”Duthiers implored viewers to take the positive humanitarian view, but ignored how they all seemed to only be of a certain age and demographic: “You have to think to yourself, no one wakes up and says, ‘Today I want to risk my life swimming to another country.’ People only do that when they feel the alternative is worse.”“Absolutely, in desperation,” Morales replied, to which Burleson added, “well said.”Reminder: Oliver Darcy, Jeremy Barr, and the rest of the liberal media reporting class want you to think CBS News is MAGA TV.Prior to this back-and-forth, Morales’s set-up was the only predictably pro-“migrants” framing as international reporter Aidian Stretch’s field report from mainland Spain was surprisingly straightforward.Stretch even stated the obvious that “[c]rossing the border does not mean free movement across Europe” and that Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni promised swift action (which she did by cutting Spain off from the rest of the European Union’s Schengen travel agreement) (click “expand”):MORALES: Well, the world’s latest immigration crisis is a long way from the U.S. Happening right now in North Africa, thousands of migrants hoping to get to Europe have swarmed over the border between Morocco and two tiny Spanish territories in just the past two days. At least 24 people have died, some of them swimming to get there. Aidan Stretch is at their intended destination, the southern coast of Spain.STRETCH: Good morning. Spain’s government has deployed its army as migrants have overwhelmed its border with Morocco in northern Africa. Over the last 48 hours, thousands of people, most of them Moroccans have made the dangerous swim around sea walls and climbed fences separating Morocco from the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla. The two enclaves sit on Morocco’s northern coast, but are Spanish territory, making them the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. Local officials have blamed the surge on a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling, which makes it harder to turn away migrants arriving from Morocco by sea. Crossing the border does not mean free movement across Europe. To get across the channels where we are now in mainland Spain, migrants would have to pass additional border controls. Still, the crossings have drawn scrutiny from conservative leaders across Europe, including Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who said she is prepared to take extraordinary measures to defend Italy’s borders and its citizens. This is not the first time that Spain has faced a crisis like this. In 2021, Moroccan authorities relaxed border enforcement following a diplomatic dispute with Spain, allowing 6,000 migrants to cross into Souta in a single day. Over at Disney-owned ABC’s Good Morning America, co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos was shellshocked reading a tease: “Shocking images. Chaos as thousands of people are seen swimming around border fences to claim asylum in Europe. Spain deploying its military. Why this is happening.”Yes, George. Those images do look bad! One has to wonder where this kind of shock was during the Biden border crisis.Cuing up a report from chief international correspondent James Longman, co-host Rebecca Jarvis called it “breaking news overnight” in the form of “[c]haos overseas as thousands of migrants surge into a Spanish enclave in north Africa” as “many” swam there, some losing their lives in the attempt.”Longman declared from London the “images are shocking” as they showed “[a]lmost 50,000…rush[ing] the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.”He also stated the obvious that “the situation is still not fully under control” at “the northern tip of Africa and the only land border with Europe.” Over on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ they spent a minute and 13 seconds about the “[c]haos overseas as thousands of migrants surge into a Spanish enclave in north Africa” and “the situation is still not fully under control” as they “are doing this to claim asylum.”ABC wouldn’t… pic.twitter.com/fFn1LFRO25— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 31, 2026 Thus, he said, “these people are doing this to claim asylum and you can see thousands of people swimming around border fences or using boats, a number of them we know have drowned.”Notice how these elitist journalists always take these “migrants” at their word they want “asylum,” and thus possess only the purest of intentions.Longman at least pointed out the reason for this mob was likely due to a recent ruling by Spain’s highest court that, in his description, “those who reached the area by sea cannot be immediately returned without due process.”He concluded by explaining Morocco has sought to cause trouble on this Spanish territory and even refused to recognize it, leaving the implication the Africa nation seeks to cause trouble.NBC’s Today barely noticed it. Co-host Craig Melvin delivered a 28-second news brief in the second hour, passing along this “crisis” as a thing that’s happening with eye-popping video: Meanwhile, NBC’s Today barely noticed it.Co-host Craig Melvin delivered a 28-second news brief in the second hour, passing along this “crisis” as a thing that’s happening with eye-popping video:“Got some breaking news overseas right now. At least 34 migrants have died trying… pic.twitter.com/iDqAtGB6LP— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 31, 2026 Got some breaking news overseas right now. At least 34 migrants have died trying to reach the Spanish territory of Ceuta after tens of thousands breached the border in Morocco. The crisis boiling over for a second day with security forces clashing with migrants in the Moroccan side of that border. Estimates show some 60,000 people have crossed so far. The Spanish military has been called in to help.To see the relevant transcripts from July 31, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

MS NOW's The Last Word on SnapStream On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci sat before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where the pre-pardoned former COVID czar pleaded the Fifth 111 times. The Republican senators grilled Fauci on the pandemic, its origins, and the contents of his recently-released diary but as Fauci was humiliated and drew even more justified suspicion upon himself, the leftist media fell over themselves in his defense.Lawrence O’Donnell on MS NOW’s The Last Word wondered how a saint like Fauci could ever be doubted about anything, while also labeling the hearing “the most disgraceful Stalinist tribunal the United States Senate has ever seen.” If it was truly a Stalinist tribunal, Fauci would have been executed. But hyperbole comes naturally to this lecturer.There should have been heroic music playing as O'Donnell proclaimed that Fauci is "a man who has done more in service to this country and the world than every senator in that room and the entire current United States Senate combined," before playing a clip of Connecticut’s Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal calling the hearing “one of the darkest days in our Senate's history.” “That’s exactly what it was,” O’Donnell agreed. “Republican senators disgraced themselves today, attacking the man who saved lives, possibly millions of lives, during the COVID-19 outbreak.” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) says Fauci's hearing was "one of the darkest days in our Senate's history" and O'Donnell repeats it right back like a good little parrot. pic.twitter.com/8hEEF8bRHE— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 30, 2026 And about Fauci’s diary that was recently released? It read “as a straightforward description, an actual accounting of what was happening to him every day, almost all of which is about the virus he was trying to conquer,” according to O’Donnell.In fact, you shouldn’t believe your lying eyes that anything in his diary proved Fauci was an egomaniacal fame-chaser. “There's no excitement, there's no glee about the surge in his fame,” O’Donnell claimed. Don't believe your lying eyes because, despite what he says in his diary, Fauci was absolutely not an egomaniacal fame-chaser"There's no excitement, there's no glee about the surge in his fame"Did Fauci really think that a document on a government computer was really private? pic.twitter.com/BMmFZTm4mW— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 30, 2026 If O’Donnell had actually read the diary, he would’ve seen lines like "Intense publicity about me continues with stories of grandmothers who have crushes on men. Petitions to vote me ‘Sexiest Man Alive,’" "Press still hot and heavy about me,” and "One person said that Tyra [Banks] was sexy, but I was even more sexy than she was.”“Dr. Fauci has been accused of name-dropping in his diary, which is impossible, because he's name-dropping in a document that no one else was ever supposed to read,” O’Donnell said.Then why was the diary kept on a government computer? A genius like Fauci should have known better than to expect permanent privacy on a government-owned device. Most of those devices warn the user before they log in that their activity, let alone documents saved on that device, can be easily accessed. Also, even if you name-drop in a private journal, it’s still definitely name-dropping. At one point, O'Donnell played a clip of Fauci attributing the hearing to Paul’s “unhinged obsession with me.” Even if that were true, Paul’s would pale in comparison to Fauci’s “unhinged obsession” with himself.  Fauci thinks Sen. Rand Paul has an obsession with him.No one could possibly be as obsessed with Fauci as Fauci.And then Lawrence O'Donnell calls the hearing a "Stalinist tribunal" pic.twitter.com/CPxt1MkAwc— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 30, 2026 O’Donnell called the hearing a "Stalinist tribunal” and then, he couldn’t help but make a jab at Donald Trump and Elon Musk:Not one Republican senator is investigating how many thousands of people have died because Donald Trump and Elon Musk took their life-saving HIV medicine away. Not one Republican Congressional committee is investigating how many babies have starved to death because Elon Musk decided to let food supplies that had already been delivered to Africa rot in warehouses instead of distributing that food to starving people. That is the Republican contribution to public health in today's world.  Crying Larry declares "all of us owe our gratitude to Anthony Fauci, and many of us may owe our lives to Anthony Fauci." And he also says Trump and Musk have killed thousands of babies and grandmothers.If you take this idiot seriously there's no hope for you. pic.twitter.com/SYJrcKpCYU— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 30, 2026 Nobody expected the liberal media to turn on Fauci, but it’s still surprising to see how hard they’re doubling down. In their godless fantasy world, Fauci is a saint, and, if you ask O’Donnell, “All of us owe our gratitude to Anthony Fauci. And many of us may owe our lives to Anthony Fauci.”The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:MS NOW's The Last Word7/29/2610:02:55 p.m. EasternLAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Bernie Moreno's target in that hearing today was a man who has done more in service to this country and the world than every senator in that room and the entire current United States Senate combined, Dr. Anthony Fauci. (...)10:04:52 p.m.O'DONNELL: The New York Times called today's hearing, quote, "A useless drama that offered zero insights." The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Rand Paul, who called today's hearing, has, for years, falsely claimed that Dr. Fauci refused to ever consider the possibility that COVID-19 originated in an infectious disease laboratory in Wuhan, China. Dr. Fauci has said repeatedly for years that he did consider that theory. He has examined possible sources of the virus, including a deliberate or accidental leak from that lab in China, and Dr. Fauci has concluded that it is more likely to have originated in nature. Like most scientists studying the issue, Dr. Fauci has never said the exact origin of the COVID-19 virus has been scientifically proved.Rand Paul released a thousand pages of Dr. Fauci's diary-like notes that Dr. Fauci kept on his office computer, which remained in government custody when he left government service.The New York Times reports, quote, "The diary does not provide the smoking gun the senator is seeking. Rather, it echoes past disclosures showing Dr. Fauci wrestling with a fast-moving crisis as scientists' views evolved."  In fact, the diary entries show that in the earliest days of Dr. Fauci's concern about COVID-19, before most of us had even heard of COVID-19, Dr. Fauci was convening a meeting to discuss the possibility of the Wuhan lab having leaked the virus accidentally or deliberately, and that diary information is not news because in February of 2020, before most of us even began to worry about COVID-19, Dr. Fauci told USA Today that they were considering "the possibility of a lab leak" as the origin.Senator Richard Blumenthal reminded the committee of those dark days in 2020.[Cut to video]SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I want to go back to the dark days of the Coronavirus pandemic, one of the darkest days, or times in our history. Hospitals were overflowing. Navy medical ships were docked in the Hudson River. Emergency rooms were forced into unprecedented triaging during the worst week of the pandemic, which happens to have been the last week of President Trump's first term.  More than 25,000 Americans died of COVID-19. Easy to forget those dark days.  But for the past 18 months, the Trump administration has been engaged in a campaign to rewrite this history. And today's proceeding, I fear, is part of that effort. One of the darkest days in our Senate's history.[Cut back to live]O'DONNELL: "One of the darkest days in our Senate's history." That is exactly what it was.  Republican senators disgraced themselves today, attacking the man who saved lives, possibly millions of lives, during the COVID-19 outbreak. The man who helped speed the development of a vaccine because of the research that he had led and supported on exactly that kind of virus for years before the outbreak of the pandemic, in anticipation of exactly the kind of pandemic that hit the world in 2020. That's why that vaccine that has saved so many of our lives reached us so quickly.  And not one senator in that room today did one thing to save a single life during the COVID-19 pandemic, not one of them. But they lined up to get their COVID-19 vaccine shots as soon as they possibly could, and they never thanked Dr. Fauci for helping speed the development of that vaccine.(...) 10:11:51 p.m. O'DONNELL: Some news accounts of Dr. Fauci's diary read - which reads as a straightforward description, an actual accounting of what was happening to him every day, almost all of which is about the virus he was trying to conquer, find fault with Dr. Fauci for recording things that actually happened to him, like phone calls with Barbra Streisand and other celebrities.  Dr. Fauci has been accused of name-dropping in his diary, which is impossible, because he's name-dropping in a document that no one else was ever supposed to read.  He mentions names like Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Francis Ford Coppola, all in the same sentence, actually, because he mentions them in a diary entry about receiving the Leonardo da Vinci Award from the Italian American Foundation, and so, yeah, some famous Italian Americans were there. The most famous Italian Americans were there. And I don't know anyone who's met those people who hasn't made some kind of note about it and told someone about it.  And so Dr. Fauci mentioned those names to his diary, where there is no bragging - there's no bragging in that diary. It's a record of who he met, of who he talked to.There's no excitement. There's no glee about the surge in his fame that he records in his diary. He marvels at the weirdness of it, as has every single person in the history of massive, rocketing surges in personal fame. Whenever that happens, people find it strange and disorienting. And that's what Dr. Fauci records, that it was strange and disorienting.  Ninety-nine percent of his diary during the COVID-19 pandemic is about the COVID-19 pandemic. There is nothing in the diary that reeks of vanity.  Rand Paul has said that Dr. Fauci should be in prison without ever once having named an actual crime that Dr. Fauci could ever be charged with.  Anthony Fauci, who has testified to Congress, possibly more than any other American in history, decided that today would be different.[Cut to video]DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Peters, members of the committee, I served at the NIH for over 54 years, 38 of those as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  Over that period, I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate Congressional oversight. In fact, I testified before and/or briefed Senate and House Congressional over— Senate and House committees well over 200 times over those 38 years. During and after the COVID pandemic, I have appeared multiple times for hearings in the Senate and the House, usually under oath, and sat for several days-long, transcribed, sworn interviews, answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing.  However, 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," unquote. Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion.Therefore, although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions. Thank you.[Cut back to live]O'DONNELL: And that led Rand Paul to turn his hearing room into the most disgraceful Stalinist tribunal the United States Senate has ever seen. (...) 10:19:44 p.m.O'DONNELL: Throwing the lawyer out of the room. Joe McCarthy, at his worst, never do - did that. Joe McCarthy was an alcoholic Republican senator conducting phony witch hunts of suspected communists in the 1950s in a Senate hearing room. And he never did, never did what Rand Paul did today, throw the lawyer out of the room.  That is how weak and lost and deranged a committee chairman, Rand Paul, is.  Senator Blumenthal was right. It was "one of the darkest days in our Senate's history." Anthony Fauci helped save millions of lives with his work on HIV medications. He expanded his life-saving reach to Africa with the support of George W. Bush by creating a president's emergency fund to support AIDS treatment in Africa that saved over 25 million lives, before Elon Musk and Donald Trump decided that those lives were not worth saving.  Not one Republican Congressional committee, not one Republican senator, is investigating how many thousands of people have died because Donald Trump and Elon Musk took their life-saving HIV medicine away. Not one Republican Congressional committee is investigating how many babies have starved to death because Elon Musk decided to let food supplies that had already been delivered to Africa rot in warehouses instead of distributing that food to starving people.  That is the Republican contribution to public health in today's world.  And not one Republican senator has ever objected to taking that food assistance away from starving children and starving mothers and starving grandmothers, and taking life-saving medicine away from people who cannot get that life-saving medicine any other way, the life-saving medicine that Doctor Anthony Fauci helped them get.There is no higher calling than saving lives. There is nothing we could ever do more important than saving a single life. And most of us will never know that feeling of saving a life. And all of us owe our gratitude to Anthony Fauci. And many of us may owe our lives to Anthony Fauci. And Anthony Fauci owes nothing to Republicans in the United States Senate. He does not owe them an answer to a single question. He's already answered every one of the questions that they were throwing around that room today. He's answered them many times in Congressional testimony and in other interviews. Every one of them, every one of those questions, he's answered in previous appearances. Sometimes, news stories come down to a very simple right and wrong, and this is one of them. Anthony Fauci is right. And every one of those Republican senators is very, very wrong. 

A Smithsonian Institution exhibit featuring 250 objects claiming to tell the story of American history is overwhelmingly dedicated to promoting liberal causes, including controversial sexual themes, a review of the exhibit’s catalog reveals.The Smithsonian’s “Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness” exhibit at the Museum of American History features three times more liberal than conservative items, the Fox News Digital review found. Several of the liberal items were overtly sexual items. Examples of the nearly two dozen liberal exhibits include:A pink "p-ssy hat" worn by a participant of the 2017 Women's March.A picture of a 1970s drag queen "wearing an off-the-shoulder shimmery gown."LGBT activism.Pro-abortion activism.Monarch butterfly wings worn by an illegal immigrant activist.A typewriter belonging to liberal writer Maya Angelou.Racial justice propaganda.Democratic Party political material.In all, Fox News Digital found “just seven conservative items compared to nearly two dozen for LGBT rights, racial justice and other causes.”“Even the items representing Christianity, however, include undertones of racial justice,” the Fox News Digital report notes. And, when it comes to the topic of immigration, far more attention is given to the “recent waves of Asian and Latino immigration” than to “earlier migrant groups such as the Irish, French and Italians.”

Snapstream Dr. Anthony Fauci’s newly released journals have cast light onto the glory-seeking nature of his response to the COVID pandemic, and in response the Senate brought him to testify for his lies and possible perjury. With a major chunk of their credibility tied to their defense of pandemic practices, the media has been quick to portray the hearing as a show trial and political prosecution. This Thursday’s CNN News Central featured co-host Sara Sidner covering the scandal with such a narrative.Sidner’s coverage began with clips of senators calling out Fauci and trying to hold him to account, but she was just lamenting how he was treated:SENATOR BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the [bleep] do you think you were for doing that?[Cuts back to live]SIDNER: Yes, he was cursed at. Sidner was much more concerned with some harsh language than the bombshell information uncovered in the Fauci journals released earlier this week.She would then bring up a pearl-clutching statement by TMZ owner Harvey Levin:HARVEY LEVIN: We are in a Senator Joseph McCarthy climate, where there is such fear that people have and legitimate fear that they'll end up in prison for what they say, no matter what it is, if they are on the wrong side of somebody in Congress or the administration that they have been silenced. And that's where we are right now. We are in Senator Joseph McCarthy territory.[Cuts back to live]SIDNER: Are you surprised to hear that from someone who has been fairly friendly with the Trump administration, especially in the early years, in the 2016, 17, 18, and 20? I mean, he just called the senators, the Republican senators, using McCarthyism.The liberals never acknowledge at this very late that Senator McCarthy's accusation of communist spies inside the federal government was true, so not everyone accused was innocent. Their natural assumption is that Fauci is a saint who has never lied or fudged on the science. While Fauci's horrific conduct during the pandemic gets exposed, CNN is more concerned with Republicans' mean words :( Outrageous that they'd rather cover this than the actual news about Fauci. And then on top of that they have the gall to call it "McCarthyist!" pic.twitter.com/6xJQ9PZSiM— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) July 30, 2026 Sidner claimed that Levin “has been fairly friendly with the Trump administration,” despite Levin having been a major critic of Trump and the conservative movement for years. Misleading their audience into believing Levin to be a credible Trump commentator, CNN legitimized his cries of McCarthyism.CNN White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs replied to Sidner’s question, portraying Fauci as a victim of a “long-held feud” and Republicans as aggressive and “threatening”:But this was the latest step in a long-held feud between the chairman of a congressional committee, in Rand Paul, and a public health official, in Dr. Fauci. And the hearing that we saw yesterday, both him pleading the fifth over and over again, and the members, you know, using that kind of harsh language, you know, threatening as well. It just speaks to how polarized and divisive not just our politics have become, but also our policy-making, including policy-making that used to be void or at least immune to some of this politics.In a hypocritical twist, Kanno-Youngs lamented the polarization with American politics while at the same time polarizing his coverage of the events to make his favored side look better. Again, he treats political polarization as an unfortunate curse, as if CNN and the leftist media hadn’t been a key factor in polarization in America.The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.CNN News CentralJuly 30, 202608:37:21 a.m. Eastern(...)SARA SIDNER: I do want to ask you about the hearing on Dr. Anthony Fauci and how he handled the pandemic. Republicans were on the attack, and they really went after him kind of on a deeply personal, angry level. Let's listen to what they said, just a smidge:[Cuts to video]SENATOR JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): If you don't want to answer questions, it's because you did all kinds of terrible things. It's because during the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you?[Cuts to another video]SENATOR RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Your legacy will not be as a man that saved America from COVID, but as a man who destroyed the public trust in America's public health institutions in exchange for five minutes of fame.[Cuts to another video]SENATOR BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): It was about six years ago today that I decided: “I'm going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run for the United States Senate.” Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the [bleep] do you think you were for doing that?[Cuts back to live]SIDNER: Yes, he was cursed at. And then you have this interesting twist from TMZ's Harvey Levin, who says - he doesn't normally weigh in like this when it comes to a political event, really, or a political hearing - but here's what he says about Fauci and what he thought he saw during that hearing:[Cuts to video]HARVEY LEVIN: We are in a Senator Joseph McCarthy climate, where there is such fear that people have and legitimate fear that they'll end up in prison for what they say, no matter what it is, if they are on the wrong side of somebody in Congress or the administration that they have been silenced. And that's where we are right now. We are in Senator Joseph McCarthy territory.[Cuts back to live]SIDNER: Are you surprised to hear that from someone who has been fairly friendly with the Trump administration, especially in the early years, in the 2016, 17, 18, and 20? I mean, he just called the senators, the Republican senators, using McCarthyism.ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It is surprising, right? When you are hearing TMZ, which obviously is known more for sort of some of the-SIDNER: Entertainment…KANNO-YOUNGS: -entertainment, celebrity, sensational, news, although they're also on the hill now too. So they are getting involved in sort of the political coverage, but it is surprising when you hear someone like that weigh in on this. I mean, all of this just speaks to how polarized our- not just politics, actually, has become, but this is now we're talking about public health and public health officials as well. Yes, we did have the release by the Trump-led HHS, we did have the release of Fauci's pandemic diaries, where he did muse about the origins of COVID and also the fame he was getting; that fueled this. But this was the latest step in a long-held feud between the chairman of a congressional committee, in Rand Paul, and a public health official, in Dr. Fauci. And the hearing that we saw yesterday, both him pleading the fifth over and over again, and the members, you know, using that kind of harsh language, you know, threatening as well. It just speaks to how polarized and divisive not just our politics have become, but also our policy-making, including policy-making that used to be void or at least immune to some of this politics.SIDNER: And to be fair, Americans do have questions about the pandemic. There are some questions that should be answered and studied and looked at and shared. But wow, I mean, a lot of people saw that and seeing Harvey Levin react that way, I- it stood out.KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah. And I don't know. Yes, you're totally right. There are valid questions about COVID, about how public health officials handled it. I don't think that Americans are expecting to get those answers from a congressional hearing anytime soon, especially given where our politics is leaning.SIDNER: Not any more. Zolan, thank you so much for coming in. Have a great weekend.