MS NOW Reports host Antonia Hylton brought on The Bulwark’s senior national correspondent Jonathan Cohn on Wednesday to help her make sense of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In a frustrating display of someone trying to have it both ways, Cohn admitted that there are legitimate questions that could be asked of Fauci but still managed to accuse Republicans of running “a show trial” aimed at putting Fauci “in jail.”
Hylton led Cohn by asking, “Do you think any of them asked serious questions? Or would you say that the majority of this has been about scoring political points? I ask because Dr. Vin Gupta was on with my colleague Stephanie Ruhle just a little bit ago, and he said that, for example, Senator Lankford had some questions that he thought were actually interesting and fair. And so I wonder if you can basically help us cut through the noise here, separate sort of fact and—from fiction and from drama.”
Really devastating lines of questioning from @SenJamesLankford....
Lankford: “There are a lot of issues and a lot of questions that have come up, and hopefully, some day in the future, we’ll be able to get all this clarity and pull it together. More than a million Americans that… pic.twitter.com/Q4tOP2Xz1N— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026
For context, Lankford asked Fauci if he brought up concerns that lockdowns were leading to children not getting their measles vaccines, which would lead to more excess deaths, at task force meetings. He also asked whether he had access to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s classified report that supported the lab leak hypothesis. Lankford further inquired about the cons of working with countries, such as China, with authoritarian governments.
Cohn began by agreeing that there are fair questions to be asked, “Yeah. So, I mean, look, there are a few questions that are legitimate. And, you know, looking back over the pandemic, I mean, I think a lot of us have said for a long time, it was a, you know, it was a once-in-a-century challenge. We did some things right. We did some things wrong. Human beings were making decisions. We should continue to look back and say, have a sober examination of what we got right, what we got wrong, so we could do better next time.”
The Bulwark's national correspondent, Jonathan Cohn, tells MS NOW that "This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative, that scientists are misleading the country. It's Donald… pic.twitter.com/LaGIggpZxs
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 29, 2026
However, Cohn then turned, “The problem is that that is not what this show is. This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative that scientists are misleading the country. It's Donald Trump deeply invested in taking out vengeance on Fauci, who he thinks helped ruin his first term.”
Alluding to Fauci always pleading the fifth, Cohn continued, “That is why Fauci doesn't want to answer questions, because he fears, legitimately, the real purpose of this is not to get to the not to have a careful, thoughtful retrospective on how we handled the last pandemic and do better next time. It is an effort to get him, you know, extract vengeance on him and put him in jail.”
Even if one grants the argument that some questions are more legitimate than others, it would follow that Fauci should have answered the legitimate ones, especially considering he was given a preemptive pardon.
Here is a transcript for the July 29 show:
MS NOW Reports
7/29/2026
11:08 AM ET
ANTONIA HYLTON: But do you think any of them asked serious questions? Or would you say that the majority of this has been about scoring political points? I ask because Dr. Vin Gupta was on with my colleague Stephanie Ruhle just a little bit ago, and he said that, for example, Senator Lankford had some questions that he thought were actually interesting and fair. And so I wonder if you can basically help us cut through the noise here, separate sort of fact and—from fiction and from drama.
JONATHAN COHN: Yeah. So, I mean, look, there are a few questions that are legitimate. And, you know, looking back over the pandemic, I mean, I think a lot of us have said for a long time, it was a, you know, it was a once-in-a-century challenge. We did some things right. We did some things wrong. Human beings were making decisions. We should continue to look back and say, have a sober examination of what we got right, what we got wrong, so we could do better next time.
The problem is that that is not what this show is. This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative that scientists are misleading the country. It's Donald Trump deeply invested in taking out vengeance on Fauci, who he thinks helped ruin his first term.
And that is what this is all about. And, you know, and that is why Fauci doesn't want to answer questions, because he fears, legitimately, the real purpose of this is not to get to the not to have a careful, thoughtful retrospective on how we handled the last pandemic and do better next time. It is an effort to get him, you know, extract vengeance on him and put him in jail.
