Bill Maher criticised Anthony Fauci on HBO’s “Real Time”, accusing the former US health official of misleading the public about the origins of COVID-19. Maher argued that the laboratory-leak theory was too readily dismissed during the pandemic and said critics had wrongly portrayed discussion of it as racist.

The comments followed a contentious Senate hearing focused on Fauci’s pandemic-era decisions and communications. The article frames Maher’s remarks as a break with much of the political left, though the origins of COVID-19 remain disputed and have not been conclusively established.