A rational look at Fangio’s Fauci comments
The Eagles' DC sparked a political wildfire that has taken on a life of its own
Delaware County Daily Times: https://tinyurl.com/y73xwzhw
Originally published July 30, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — It was a case of Italian on Italian crime.
Vic Fangio had not yet answered a question Thursday morning when he wandered out of football and into politics.
Asked about the Eagles’ unsettled safety positions, the highly respected defensive coordinator smiled and reached for a big news story from the previous day.
“I’m going to be like Fauci and just take the Fifth Amendment on your question,” Fangio said, chuckling. “Did you guys see that? Oh, my God.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci is a retired, world-renowned physician and immunologist who earned his medical degree from Cornell and completed his internal medicine residency at Cornell’s New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He later joined the National Institutes of Health.
Fauci was instrumental in combating infectious diseases in the United States and around the world, including AIDS, SARS, swine flu and Ebola.
He helped architect PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) under President George W. Bush — an initiative pioneered by Bono that cost Americans less than 1% of their tax dollars and saved 25 million lives while promoting American soft interest in poor, vulnerable countries.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk took a chainsaw to the program early in Trump’s current term.
But it was Fauci’s work on COVID-19 during President Donald Trump’s first term that put him in the political crosshairs.
Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 100 times Wednesday during a contentious Senate hearing about the origins of COVID-19 and federally funded research.
Fangio apparently caught enough of the proceedings to work the spectacle into his opening answer on Day 2 of Eagles training camp.
He wasn’t finished.
Later, a reporter told Fangio that general manager Howie Roseman had avoided answering a similar question about safeties a day earlier.
“He ducked you?” Fangio asked. “He Fauci-ed you?”
Fangio was joking. Most media members laughed.
The exchanges are already delighting some on the political right, where Fauci has long been vilified as a symbol of government overreach, pandemic restrictions and unanswered questions about COVID-19.
It should be noted that President Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment nearly 450 times during a 2022 deposition in New York’s civil fraud investigation of his decades-long financial practices — a useful reminder that exercising the Constitutional right isn’t confined to one political side.
Also, over the course of Fauci’s government career, he served under seven presidents from both parties: Republican Ronald Reagan, Republican George H.W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton, Republican George W. Bush, Democrat Barack Obama, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
On Jan. 19, 2021 — the final day of Trump’s first term — Trump honored Fauci and 51 others who worked on “Operation Warp Speed,” which rapidly developed vaccines to fight COVID-19. Those unprecedented vaccines ended the global pandemic that had killed and hospitalized millions of people and debilitated economies around the world.
Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the scientific community and undermined basic institutions, has since distanced himself from “Operation Warp Speed” because many of his die-hard supporters, ironically, no longer trust vaccines after Trump's own disinformation and poisoning of the political well.
“Operation Warp Speed” was historic and perhaps Trump’s greatest accomplishment — one of the greatest feats of any president. It came after he initially mismanaged and lied about the pandemic, including saying on March 24, 2020, it would magically go away by Easter and suggesting on April 23, 2020, that people should inject disinfectant into their arms.
All of that said, anyone rushing to enlist Fangio in a political cause should probably take the Fifth themselves. Fangio’s public history of politics is both limited and more complicated than a few wisecracks.
After George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, recorded and replayed in full on national television, Fangio (then the head coach of the Denver Broncos) said he was “shocked, sad and angry.” He said Chauvin should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and accused him of betraying the badge and uniform he had been entrusted to wear.
Fangio called racism a societal problem “that we all have to join in to correct.”
He stumbled badly in the same news conference when he said he did not see racism or discrimination in the NFL and described the league as a meritocracy. Players and others quickly challenged him.
Fangio listened. Then he apologized.
He said his comments were wrong and acknowledged that players, coaches and employees had experiences different from his own. He said that outside the locker room and the field, the NFL and society still had much work to do in creating diversity and opportunities for minorities.
Fangio later joined Broncos players, coaches and staff in a Denver march against racism.
He also defended the right of players to protest and praised then-Broncos safety Justin Simmons for his progressive activism. Simmons marched for Black Lives Matter against police officers killing unarmed Black men, with Simmons stating “All lives will matter when Black lives matter.”
“I thought it was great,” Fangio said of Simmons’ peaceful protests. “Justin is a great person, a great leader and has his head screwed on correctly.”
Fangio said players should do what they believed was right. He also has publicly supported the Rooney Rule, the NFL policy designed to increase hiring opportunities for minority coaching and executive candidates.
None of that makes him a man of the left any more than Thursday’s jokes make him a man of the right.
It makes him Vic Fangio.
Fangio saw something funny. He cracked a joke about it. Then he went back to football before anybody could put a campaign hat on him — no matter how hard they tried.
By the way, Andrew Mukuba, in his second year and returning from an ankle injury, is expected to start at free safety in most sets while Marcus Epps is the leader at strong safety. Nickel cornerback Cooper DeJean will contribute at safety in base packages. But a lot can happen before the Eagles open their season Sept. 13.
Follow Christiaan DeFranco on X and Threads at @the_defranc.