Analysis: Covid’s last culture war over Fauci shows a nation unready for the next crisis | CNN Politics

The Covid-19 pandemic was a historic stress test that revealed American politics as too broken to deal with a national crisis.

Six years later, a new political storm over Dr. Anthony Fauci, once the nation’s most prominent health official, suggests those fractures are now even more toxic. And a long-delayed reckoning over the worst public health emergency in 100 years is more distant than ever.

A Republican-led Senate committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress on Thursday after he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times during an acrimonious hearing last week.

Committee Chair Sen. Rand Paul has accused Fauci of obstructing his probe into pandemic policies. The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases declined to answer questions, accusing his longtime antagonist from Kentucky of laying a trap to get around a pardon he was granted by then-President Joe Biden.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI WAITS FOR THE START OF A SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE HEARING ON CAPITOL HILL IN WASHINGTON, DC, ON JULY 29, 2026.