0 with a little box that says contribute here. >> tonight, my exclusive interview with doctor anthony fauci. then. >> you want to be on the side of dr. king, or george wallace? do you want to be on the side of john lewis, or bill connor? this is the moment to decide. >> senator cory booker on the presidents rousing call to protect democracy. an academy award winning filmmaker doctor -- don't look up. >> you know how many meetings we've had over the last few years. so boring. >> when all in, starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. during this pandemic, doctor anthony fauci has become a fixation. even obsession on the right, and it is among those who see him as a punching bag. for the pointy headed public officials who want to tell you how to live your life. even gone so far as to compare him to a dictator and a murderer. >> after two years of nonstop murder -- morphed into a version of vinita mussolini. >> this is what people say to me, he doesn't represent science to them, he represents dr. joseph mengele. the doctor, the naughty doctor, who did experiments on jews in the second world war in concentration camps. >> hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund deadly human experiments on puppies. >> doctor fauci is sending puppies to slaughter, basically. >> today, doctor fauci was on capitol hill, testifying on the federal government's response to the omicron variant. as we see a massive spike in cases around the country. and i think, fair to say, a profound sense of frustration, exhaustion with the ongoing pandemic. now doctor fauci has testified in front of congress many times. and by now, we all expect him to face hostile questions from the public. there is one republican who seems to have a particularly obsession with doctor fauci. senator rand paul of kentucky. every time he comes to testify, senator paul tries to the knockdown over and over again. i think that dr. fauci routinely ignores the science, causes hysteria and creates fear. this is the opposite of what we want as somebody leading our public health effort. doctor fauci, do you still support funding of the nih funding of the lab in wuhan? >> senator paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect >> dr. fauci, i don't expect you today to admit that you improved of nih funding of ghana function research in wuhan. but your repeated denials have -- you won't admit that it is dangerous. for that lack of judgment, i think it is time the resign >> today, in the hearing before the health education committee ransom attacks took a new turn, as he accused doctor fauci of trying to silence other scientists. >> do you really think it is important to use your 420,000 dollar salary to attack scientists that disagree with you. >> the email that you are referring to was an email of dr. collins to me. if you look at the email. >> that he responded to, respond to and set hurry up, i can do. >> i think unusual fashion senator. you are distorting everything about me. >> did you ever object to dr. collins's character action? did you write to him, an esteemed scientist, it would be beneath me. he responded to him, that you would do it. and you immediately got an article in the wire. send it back to him, said i nailed him in the wire. >> that's not what went on. there you go again. you just do the same thing every hearing. >> okay, before we get into what happened after that. and again, senator paul comes up with all sorts of things he wants to go after fauci on. it will happen today. we are going to play that. take a step back for a second. let's understand. doctor anthony fauci. has been on the receiving end of many attacks. has been around a block a few times. for nearly 40 years, he's been the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. in fact, that salary that rand paul mentioned. was because he had so much seniority. he's accrued in the federal government pay scale. 40 years. was appointed that rule in 1984 in the early years of the aids epidemic. he was also than the target of some very angry public criticism at the time because dr. fauci had become the public face of the federal government's response to that crisis to that deadly virus. in october of 1988, aids activists at the food and drug administration headquarters, outside of dr. fauci's office of the national institute of health, protesters chance to, a few fauci. that's a mere, larry kramer, alleging himself, published this open letter to doctor fauci in the village voice. in which he called fauci, an incompetent idiot, and quote a murder. craig told, he was an essential focus of evil in the world. crime attack fauci relentlessly in the media. he called him a pill pushing tool of the medical establishment, insulted his wife, even compared him to adolf ike men. here's the thing. kremer and fauci would eventually become close friends. with fauci telling the new york times, after karen's death in 2020, that they loved each other. but nothing changed overnight. in may of 1990, hundreds of activists descended on the national institutes of health again. watch rainbow colors go. we're skeleton masks. carried signs it's a red tape kills us. they even put a fake doctor fauci had on the spike. there. all of this to say. anthony fauci is no stranger to public criticism. he is a big boy. it is something that comes with the territory. something he has had to live with as a public official. something that all public officials have to. that we live in a democracy is. two years ago, doctor fauci and his family started receiving security protection armed security detail. as a result of increasing online attacks. those attacks only got worse with the pandemics and the rights obsession. today on capitol hill took a different turn. doctor fauci is shared a specific and terrifying story of one of those very real threats. after senator rand paul relentlessly attacked him. >> what happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue. is that all of the sudden, that candles the crazies out there. and i have life, threats upon my life. harassment of my family. and my children. with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me. now, i guess you could say, that is the way echoes, i can take the hit. well, it makes a difference. because some of you may know, just about three or four weeks ago, december 21st. a person was arrested, who was on their way from sacramento, to washington d.c. at a speed stop in iowa. and they asked the police. the police asked where he was going. and he was going to washington d.c. to kill dr. fauci. and they found in his car an ar-15 and multiple magazines of ammunition. because he thinks that maybe i am killing people. >> so as i mentioned before, this is been an ongoing pattern. and it is not just dr. fauci. there is a lot of people, that once they get into the scopes of the right-wing machine, they have a security problem. doctor fauci, as you see, chief among them. every time that fauci comes bill for the senate health committee. ron paul goes after him. often about a different thing each time. does prompt a question, why is senator paul doing this over and over again? in a hostile and performative manner. well, doctor fauci has figured it out. i was seen as a theory. shared his answer with the committee today. >> i asked myself, why would senator want to do this? ? go to rand paul website. you see, fire doctor fauci, with a little box that says contribute here. you can do $5, $10, $20. $100. so you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain. >> you might think that might instill some shame in toronto. but no. just hours after hearing concluded, paul fired sending this email. literally fundraising after doctor fauci. calling him a today's hearing. joining me now, the man who's been on the receiving end of these attacks. who's been undeterred, doctor anthony fauci director of the national institute of -- doctor fauci, let's take a step back and talk about your career in public life and your career at the locus of these different policy issues. having to deal with high stakes pandemics, epidemics and diseases. i was sort of amazed as we were going through the footage today, senior head on a spike outside of a protest. i did know that it had gotten to that point. is this sort of how it goes, or is there something different now in the nature of our politics and the nature of attacks on you that are different than what you have experienced before in public life? >> it is entirely different chris. back in the activist days, the federal government was not early on including activists, particularly gay activists, those who are at risk for, or those who had been living with hiv. in the kinds of discussions for clinical trials and the rigidity of the regulatory process. they made a really good point. they were fundamentally good people who were not lying. they were reacting, trying to gain attention. very theatrical about. if you look at that film, most of those people, many of them now, are my closest friends. they are fundamentally people of high integrity, who don't lie, who are trying to get the federal government to do things that quite frankly the federal government was slow in doing. and as the face of the federal government, the way that they got attention, which was pretty good activists ploy, it's exceeded. was to be very iconoclast ick, to be very provocative and very theatrical. and they got my attention. i sat down and listen to them. what they said made absolute sense. and major changes. they were dignified people. i said many of them are my closest friends right now. but we are having now, is that right lies. that clearly are in the realm of politics. that thing i showed at the hearing is very true. we were having a hearing today, chris, that was a tough hearing. they were tough questions that were asked on both sides of the aisle. the democrats clearly, but was not a piece of cake. they were asking very good questions about what the administration was doing. and the republicans themselves, led by senator burr, we're asking questions that were important. mitt romney, collins, tuberville, including senator moran. they are asking tough questions but. senator paul was doing, was not even getting anybody a chance to make any explanation. nothing productive, constructive. totally ad hominem. before the get-go, before you could get a word out of your mouth. that is entirely different than the aids activists from the 19 80s. it is fundamentally different. >> you shared the story, i had read reports about the individual who was arrested with weapons, saying that they are on there waiting towards you. senator paul gave an interview saying that is ridiculous, that has nothing to do with me. you cannot hold people accountable for what some violent disordered person is doing. it is irresponsible to pay me with that brush. have you experience threat like this before? or a security situation like this before in your public life, given that you've had a career as long as you have? >> no. absolutely not. in all of the situations that we were in, it was trying to get attention to sit down and be able to talk. there was no threats. i went down to the aids activist hub in greenwich village. in the gay and lesbian community center. to talk about, with the same people that we're putting my head on a steak, just to get my attention and i got my attention when i went and spoke to them. i felt completely safe in that environment. because they were fundamental people who were struggling to get the attention of the government. what you saw the hearing today was pure ad hominem. and i called him out. because that is exactly what he is doing. he is raising money. vote here, paid for by rand paul. fire fauci, he is killing you, he's murdering people, he's doing this and by the way, don't hear, click this box. if that isn't absolutely proof of what is going on here, i mean, you can't miss that when chris. >> i want to play another moment today that happened with senator marshall. who seemed very focused on your public financial disclosures, which are required by law and filed. and there was an exchange over them, where he seemed to think that they weren't accessible and they are. you can get them here. he was that exchange, take a listen. >> yes or no, would you be willing to submit to congress and the public a financial disclosure that includes your past and current investments, after all your colleague, dr. walensky and every member of congress summits a financial disclosure that includes their investments. >> i don't understand why you are asking me that question. my financial disclosure is public knowledge and has been so for the last 37 years or so, 35 years. it is totally accessible to you if you want it. for the public. >> is it accessible for the public? >> you are totally incorrect. >> senator marshall, dr. fauci has answered you. but it is public information and he is happy to give it to you if you asked. >> senator moran. >> didn't sound like you at the end there doctor fauci. you seemed a little frustrated with that line of inquiry. >> you know, chris, it is just an example again. he was implying if you listen to the entire dialogue, that in my position, responsible for drug trials and having so-called inside knowledge of what's drug works in which trump doesn't work, that maybe i was making investments. sort of like ahead of the game here. he was totally implying that. and he made the statement that we cannot get your financial statement. it was stunning to me that a united states senator doesn't realize that my financial statement is public knowledge. it's like, where have you been? i want to ask a final question about where we find ourselves. you talked about the omicron wave today, there's one big question, it's a worry i have. we looked at south africa, we saw the curve. we saw a pretty big divergence between cases and hospitalizations. we saw that in denmark, which was the frontline of omicron. we saw that in the uk. even in a very vaccinated place, like new york city, we have seen hospitalizations go. up we are not seeing that gap between hospitalization and cases in the same way we've seen in other places, and i wonder how much that worries you. what is your theory for why that is? day >> it's complicated, chris. if you look at our cases, there really is, if you look at the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, the charts are really rather profound, particularly between vaccinated and boosted individuals, where you see the overwhelming majority of people who are in the hospital and dying. it is true that this virus has a phenomenal degree of transmissibility. the transmissibility means a lot of people are going to get infected. i believe you are going to see -- already starting to see that, when you talk anecdotally to the hospitals, they're seeing a lot of people who are getting infected, but it appears that the seriousness of it is less. i think once we get through -- since it's a big country, and there's different regions, with different levels of vaccinations, different levels of what we call percentage of already affected individuals, that i believe you're going to see exactly what we've seen in south africa. that you're going to see a big gap, where this virus, even though it's highly infectious, for the most part, will not be as severe. but, when quantitatively, you get so many people infected, even if the relative proportion of people who are hospitalized is less than with delta, when you have such a volume of people infected, you're going to get a lot of serious disease, which is the reason why we now have something like 145,000 hospitalizations, 1600 deaths, and over a korte -- three quarters of 1 million cases, in one day. we can't take this lightly. >> doctor anthony fauci, thank you so much for making time tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> we got a big show for you tonight. as a fighter of the voting rights bill comes to a head, new jersey senator cory booker is here. president biden's ultimatum, call the vote or change a filibuster. how soon until we see action. plus, show you the big, short anchorman, and -- on his new breakthrough hit movie, don't look up. he joins me live, just ahead. stick around, you don't want to miss it. ahead remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget miss it. are price, price, and price. a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an 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