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Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher railed against former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci just days after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times during a Senate hearing over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher called out Fauci for telling “actual lies” about the origins of the virus responsible for over seven million confirmed deaths worldwide following Fauci’s Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“He was caught in actual lies,” Maher said, adding, “The big issue to me is the origin of this, which is very important. How did it start?”
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Comedian and television host Bill Maher arrived for the 27th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor gala at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on June 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)
The comedian pointed to Fauci’s previous assertions that the virus originated through animal-to-human contact at a wet market in Wuhan, China.
“He was telling people up front when it first began [that] it was from the wet markets. It could not — that’s a conspiracy theory — if you say it escaped from the lab,” Maher said.
“And he knew better,” Maher continued. “Because we have him in his diary telling us what he was saying to other scientists, who were saying, ‘No, absolutely.’”
Digital reached out to Fauci for comment.
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Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci listens during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Fauci declined to answer questions, asserting his Fifth Amendment right. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Maher went on to point to the controversial theory that the virus was the result of either an accidental or intentional leak from a Chinese laboratory in the same city where the first cases originated.
He also blasted Fauci over the crux of his hearing, in which he was questioned regarding the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ funding of “gain-of-function” research in China.
Digital previously covered Fauci’s vehement denial that the controversial research method — which involves scientists altering the genetics of a virus to better understand and treat it — led to the samples breaking free from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
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The attorney for former NIH Director Anthony Fauci (R), David Schertler (L), is removed from the hearing room at the direction of committee chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee July 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. Fauci declined to answer questions from the oommittee asserting his fifth amendment right during the hearing. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“I would always have said, don’t do it, but it’s a viable debate,” Maher said, referring to the “gain-of-function” research method. “It’s a reasonable debate — should we soup up something that’s bad, this bacteria, to study it? Maybe if it got out it would be even worse. I think that’s what did happen.”
In June 2025, the World Health Organization released a report in which officials determined “the weight of available evidence … suggests zoonotic spillover … either directly from bats or through an intermediate host.”
Maher then challenged the controversy surrounding the lab leak theory, which has been supported by President Donald Trump, and suggested the outcry surrounding its merit was largely due to social issues — not scientific evidence.
“We could have had that debate in a rational way,” Maher said. “We didn’t want to do that. Because why? Because we make everything about race. And this is one of the repercussions in this.”
Maher added that the pandemic brought a racial stigma surrounding the lab leak theory, creating an unfounded taboo on the topic.
“You couldn’t say it escaped from the lab, because that was the racist point of view somehow — that the entire Asian continent would have been somehow complicit in this because it escaped from the [lab],” Maher said. “It was ridiculous.”
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“But that is where they went,” the comedian continued. “You were racist if you said this escaped from a lab. I think we’ve morphed from a place where we want to obviously not be prejudiced against anybody, to where people of color can never do any wrong.”
Maher’s criticism of Fauci marks a notable break from his fellow left-leaning counterparts in media, who have historically stood behind the doctor.
“Once again, Bill Maher is willing to level with the country in a way the liberal, elitist media never would,” Curtis Houck, managing editor of NewsBusters at the Media Research Center, told Digital. “The press should be capable of calling balls and strikes.”
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“But when it comes to most things and their dear Saint Fauci, they must protect him at all costs by either explaining away his damaging diary entries or not covering them at all,” he continued. “The media have made the decision to be joined at the hip with Fauci, even as his credibility has dropped off a cliff.”
