“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country. This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal,” the nation's top infectious disease expert said in the email ahead of his first testimony since mid-March, referring to the White House plan to reopen the economy.
Democrats are eager to question him without President Donald Trump standing nearby.
"This will be one of the first opportunities for Dr. Fauci to tell the American people the unvarnished truth without the president lurking over his shoulder," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday about what could be a blockbuster hearing. "Dr. Fauci, let it rip."
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Fauci, along with other top health care officials, who serve on the White House coronavirus task force and are self-quarantining after potential COVID-19 exposures, are scheduled to appear via videoconference before a Senate committee Tuesday to answer questions about re-opening the country.