Aaron Rodgers came into Monday’s interview on The Pat McAfee Show as the Steelers’ quarterback in Mike McCarthy’s first training camp with the team. What started as a conversation about Rodgers’ mindset heading into what he called his last season quickly veered into a full-throated attack on Anthony Fauci.
McAfee opened by asking Rodgers about the idea of a final year, pointing to Rodgers’ comments about coming back for “this year, last rodeo” and his wife telling him, “Hey, have another year.” Rodgers didn’t stay on that track for long.
“I’m going to plead the Fifth,” Rodgers said, using the line to reference former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci pleading the Fifth over 100 times in a recent congressional hearing.
Rodgers then unloaded on Fauci directly.
“That absolute coward, Tony Fauci,” Rodgers went on. “Absolute coward.
Yeah. Are you kidding me?
“You got a pardon and you pleaded over 100 times at the White House? What are you scared of, Tony?
I thought you were the science. I thought you were, ‘I am science,’ and you get up there and you can’t answer a question?
“And how much time did the network spend on that? How much time did they spend on my responses every week, on my vaccination status, on Taylor and Travis’s wedding?
Yeah. Did they do even a minute?
Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci?”
Rodgers then appeared to take aim at ESPN over the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini scandal before being steered back toward Fauci.
“Seriously, what are they going to say about me now? Now, now you can’t talk about the COVID stuff because obviously it was, it was made, you know, in a lab in China.
That’s like not even questionable anymore. Tony Fauci is an absolute criminal.
I’m on, I’m on good terms with my family. I’m on good terms with my family.
What are you gonna say now? What are you gonna say now?
…
“It’s been a great, great life and a great career, and it’s nice to be sitting on this side now, especially after that coward pleaded the Fifth over 100 times. Okay, I thought you had a part in there, Tony. Why couldn’t you, uh, answer one question the entire time?”
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