GOP senator ahead of Fauci testimony: ‘I don’t expect to get much out of him’

Senate GOP senator ahead of Fauci testimony: ‘I don’t expect to get much out of him’ Comments: by Ryan Mancini - 07/26/26 4:53 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Ryan Mancini - 07/26/26 4:53 PM ET Comments: Link copied

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on Sunday said he does not “expect to get much out of” Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), during his upcoming Senate hearing.

“I think it’d be very forgetful, completely unrepentant, arrogant, I mean –– arrogant to the extreme,” Johnson told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked about what to expect from Fauci’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee testimony this week.

“Don’t expect to get much out of him, but I’m going to try and lay out all the things that he did that were such a miserably failed response to COVID,” Johnson added before the interview ended.

The committee’s chair, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said Fauci was subpoenaed to testify about an alleged cover-up of the U.S.’s involvement in viral research at a Chinese lab where Paul and other Republicans say the virus that caused the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was created.

Paul has claimed, without substantial evidence, that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and somehow escaped as an artificially enhanced virus. He has pointed to Fauci and other health officials as plotting to promote the “lab-leak theory” as a conspiracy theory.

The Kentucky Republican, who blames Fauci for the tens of millions of global COVID-19 deaths, previously told Fox Business that he expects Fauci “will not tell the truth.” The two have clashed during past testimonies over COVID-19 while Fauci served as the Biden administration’s response to the virus.

“I don’t expect him to be honest, he hasn’t been honest in the last six years,” he said.

Fauci is scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

Former President Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci before leaving office, over concerns the Trump administration would target them. Fauci retired from government work in 2022, having acted as an adviser to presidents since former President Reagan.

Fauci told Paul during a 2021 hearing that the NIAID did not fund gain-of-function research on COVID-19 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Paul said Fauci should be indicted after he claimed the physician lied under oath.

“We’ve been negotiating with him for material and for testimony,” Paul told CNBC last month. “This has gone on for some time. He slow-walked us and slow-walked us. Finally agreed to come in voluntarily … then last week he says he’s not coming in. With this subpoena power, we will bring him in, unless he fights this in court.”

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