Fauci says Republican criticisms of him are 'attacks on science'

Dr. Anthony Fauci is fighting back against the criticisms over his handling of the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying they're in fact "attacks against science." 

"It's very dangerous," Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease expert, said Wednesday on MSNBC. "A lot of what you're seeing as attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science."

Fauci's response comes amid the release of a recent batch of emails that track his evolving efforts to control the pandemic since its start in March 2020 and subsequent calls by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and others for his ouster.

In an April 2020 email, Fauci, who has been part of the Trump and Biden administration's pandemic response team, told then- Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell that "the typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective." 

Fauci also said in the MSNBC interview: "All of the things that I have spoken about consistently from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science."