Roger Marshall put Kansas in the spotlight for the wrong reasons during spat with Anthony Fauci

There’s no love lost between Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a top health adviser to President Joe Biden.

After a very tense back and forth during a Tuesday Senate Health Committee meeting Fauci was caught whispering that Marshall was a “moron.”

Yikes. What an interesting way to put Kansas in the spotlight. And certainly gives us a new definition for the term “Kansas nice.”

The beef the Topeka Capital-Journal’s Andrew Bahl reports appears to be over Fauci’s financial disclosures. At the end of the exchange Fauci called Marshall "misinformed" for alleging Fauci hadn't disclosed key financial information.

"What are you talking about?" Fauci interjected. "My financial disclosures are public knowledge and have been so. You have amazingly wrong information."

It seems like Marshall was grasping at straws here.

Bahl reported media outlets, including the Center for Public Integrity, have obtained Fauci's financial disclosure information in past years.

Marshall also grilled Fauci on other things relating to the coronavirus, such as why officials weren't investing more in pushing out therapeutics to treat COVID-19.

"Calling me a moron during a Senate hearing may have alleviated the stress of the least trusted bureaucrat in America, but it didn’t take away from the facts," Marshall said in a statement.

It seems like playground antics playing out on a national level. Where’s the adult to intervene?

The pressure on Fauci was under was politically motivated. Fauci is often a target of Republican criticism.

More: 'It probably even makes it worse': Sen. Marshall questions masks. Experts push back.

This isn’t the first time Marshall has been opposed to what Fauci and the CDC have advised. In August, Marshall questioned the effectiveness of masking.

It should be noted that while Marshall is a medical professional, he’s an obstetrician and gynecologist, not an epidemiologist or a virologist. Frankly, when it comes to medical advice about the pandemic, Marshall is out of his depth.

If you want to offer criticism, remember you need to be able to take it as well, Sen. Marshall. Asking you for advice on epidemiology is like asking a cardiologist if a mole looks cancerous. You probably know more than a lay person, but let’s leave it to an expert.

If you’re reading this, Senator, we’d like to remind you: Just because someone like Fauci says something you don’t like doesn’t mean it’s without merit.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Roger Marshall got called out in playground brawl with Anthony Fauci