Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) stated on Sunday, July 26, 2026, that he does not expect to gain much from Dr. Anthony Fauci's upcoming Senate testimony. Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is set to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week.

Johnson described Fauci as "very forgetful, completely unrepentant, arrogant, I mean –– arrogant to the extreme," during an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures." He added that he plans to highlight what he considers a "miserably failed response to COVID."

Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused Fauci of being subpoenaed to testify about an alleged cover-up involving U.S. participation in viral research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. Paul and other Republicans claim, without substantial evidence, that the virus causing the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was artificially enhanced and escaped from that lab.

Paul, who holds Fauci responsible for the tens of millions of global COVID-19 deaths, told Fox Business he expects Fauci "will not tell the truth," citing past clashes during testimonies when Fauci was part of the Biden administration's COVID-19 response team. Paul also stated, "I don’t expect him to be honest, he hasn’t been honest in the last six years."

Fauci previously told Paul during a 2021 hearing that the NIAID did not fund gain-of-function research on COVID-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Former President Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon before leaving office amid concerns about potential investigations by the Trump administration.

Sources