NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� is sitting before Congress, is on TV debating COVID lockdowns and Americans can鈥檛 agree on .
If you squint, you might think it’s 2020 again.
Six years after COVID-19 thrust the world into the fear and uncertainty of a , Republicans in power aren鈥檛 leaving it in the past. Instead, they鈥檝e recently returned its familiar political arguments to center stage for demanding accountability for the scientists and media figures whom they feel deceived and mistreated Americans years ago.
The efforts ramped up last week, when a Republican-led Senate committee chaired by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul subpoenaed the now-retired, 85-year-old Fauci to testify about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The former National Institutes of Health immunologist repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment, after accusing the lawmakers of trying to coerce him to perjure himself to justify criminal charges. In response to his choice, on Thursday, the committee , a stunning move that could motivate the Justice Department to initiate an investigation.
Separately, Kennedy, a politically independent former anti-vaccine activist who now serves as the Republican President Donald Trump鈥檚 health secretary, spent part of his weekend in a combative live debate with CNN host Dana Bash about how the pandemic was managed and the media鈥檚 role in it.
Political scientists and historians say the focus on COVID grievances half a decade after the virus鈥� peak demonstrates how some wounds it opened have never been closed. Democrats, meanwhile, have slammed the federal government鈥檚 blaming of Fauci as a performative distraction that鈥檚 not based in facts.
While both Paul and Kennedy have spent years airing their frustrations about COVID, the Republican takeover of Congress and the White House last year created a new platform for them to steer how America remembers the pandemic, and who is held responsible for it, according to Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University.
It鈥檚 also allowed them to use the administration鈥檚 resources to surface new information.
鈥淭he response to COVID has become a touchstone for Trump鈥檚 Republican Party,鈥� Dallek said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e using their power now to argue they were right all along.鈥�
Pandemic grievances have simmered for years
When the coronavirus began spreading widely in 2020, under Trump’s first administration, groups of Americans revolted against requirements imposed by local authorities and businesses telling people to wear masks and stay at home to control the spread of the virus.
When a vaccine became available, those sentiments were supercharged. Figures like Kennedy, then a leader of the anti-vaccine movement, accused the federal government of trampling on personal liberties by supporting vaccine mandates and social media takedowns of dissenting ideas.
While Trump has long expressed pride in his first-term Operation Warp Speed effort to disseminate COVID-19 vaccines quickly, saving millions of lives, his second administration’s approach to the vaccines has taken a different tone.
Under Kennedy’s leadership, U.S. regulators have of COVID-19 vaccines for Americans. Kennedy on CNN on Sunday questioned whether the COVID-19 vaccine protected children, even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website that they 鈥渉elp keep children from getting really sick from COVID-19.鈥�
Frances Lee, a Princeton University political scientist, said debates over COVID-19’s origins and the government’s handling of it have erupted on the fringes for years. Now that some of the leaders of those debates are in power, they’re hashing it out on the national stage 鈥� something she said needed to happen eventually.
鈥淭here are aggrieved parties, people who have a sense that they were done wrong during the pandemic and that there鈥檚 never been an accounting for that,鈥� Lee said. 鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 want to think about this topic, but nevertheless there are constituencies 鈥� so Congress is speaking to those constituencies.鈥�
Lee said Kennedy鈥檚 decision to surface numerous diary entries that Fauci had made on a government computer 鈥� and Paul鈥檚 decision to publicize them last week 鈥� created an opening for 鈥渢he first real showdown鈥� in years around the pandemic鈥檚 handling.
While some of the entries 鈥� including Fauci鈥檚 uncertainty in the about how best to curb the virus 鈥� already were reflected in a 2024 memoir and in interviews at the time, they have nonetheless drawn attention from people who blame Fauci for policies they believe infringed on their rights as .
Also discussed at Fauci’s hearing last week was whether NIH-funded research in China may have played a role in . During the hearing, Trump’s White House also posted on social media to direct attention to a federal website that used to feature information on COVID vaccines, testing and treatment that has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.
Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, coming to light when it spread at a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. There鈥檚 no new scientific evidence supporting the theory that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory, a theory Paul champions. A GOP-led subcommittee that studied the question in 2024 found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.
Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that there鈥檚 more evidence supporting COVID-19鈥檚 natural origins.
Many dismiss the idea that Republicans鈥� COVID fact-finding is genuine
As Republicans hold up the Fauci hearing and contempt vote as important accountability, Democrats have called the process disingenuous. Paul said Thursday he’d invited Fauci to appear for a private, transcribed interview, but Democrats accused him of not allowing the full, bipartisan committee to be present for it.
Paul also opted to refer the committee’s contempt vote directly to the Justice Department, instead of to the full Senate, as often happens with contempt resolutions. He said he did not 鈥渨ant to waste time鈥� with that route, while Democrats insisted it should be done that way.
Last week鈥檚 hearing, at which Fauci pleaded the Fifth, came after the immunologist had repeatedly appeared before Congress over the years and talked about his thinking in the beginning of the pandemic and how it changed over time. Critics have raised concerns that the ordeal surrounding him will deter scientists from taking government jobs for fear of being similarly targeted.
Paul has long argued that Fauci should be criminally investigated, based on his belief that the scientist has been dishonest to Congress about National Institutes of Health-funded research and COVID’s origins. Fauci’s attorney last week called Paul’s accusations about the scientist 鈥渇alse and disgraceful.鈥� More than 150 infectious-disease experts also came to Fauci’s defense, writing that 鈥渘o credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges鈥� and that they are urging elected officials to 鈥渟top these witch-hunts.鈥�
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute said the hearing didn’t represent legitimate truth seeking.
鈥淭hey were looking for a platform in which they could attack him, and he would not respond, and he would say 鈥榩lead the Fifth鈥� over and over again,鈥� Ornstein said.
He said while some Republicans are likely true believers that Fauci committed crimes, bringing him to the forefront serves a dual purpose in a midterm election year 鈥� distracting voters from less favorable headlines, including on the economy and foreign conflicts.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e preaching to the right-wing choir here,鈥� he said.
Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said there are real lessons to learn from the pandemic, including more deeply examining which efforts to contain the virus worked and didn鈥檛 work. But he said Republicans in Congress aren鈥檛 chasing those.
鈥淎 review of revisionist history will accomplish nothing,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e won鈥檛 be any better prepared for the next pandemic.鈥�
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
