The majority of Americans agree that Dr. Anthony Fauci has lost credibility with the American people, a Rasmussen Reports survey released Tuesday found.

The survey asked, “Do you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘Fauci has lost all credibility with the American people. We aren’t waiting on his permission to celebrate Christmas together.’”

A majority, 54 percent, said they agree with that statement, and of those, 38 percent “strongly” agree. Just over one-third, 36 percent, said they disagree with that statement, while 11 percent remain unsure.

A majority of Republicans and independents agree with the statement that Fauci has lost credibility, 74 percent and 54 percent, respectively.

Democrats, however, disagree, as 36 percent agree he has lost credibility, compared to 54 percent who disagree.

Overall, 45 percent said they have an unfavorable view of Fauci. Of those, 31 percent have a “very” unfavorable view. Forty-one percent have a favorable view, and of those, 25 percent have a “very” favorable view:

Politics has a clear influence on opinions about Dr. Fauci and COVID-19. While 68% of Democrats still have a favorable opinion of Fauci, that view is shared by only 23% of Republicans and 31% of those unaffiliated with either major party. Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans and 50% of the unaffiliated have an unfavorable impression of Fauci, as do 20% of Democrats.

The survey, taken October 7 and 10, 2021, among 1,000 American adults, has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. 

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head came under fire this month after appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he asserted it was “just too soon to tell” if Americans can gather with friends and family for Christmas.

“We have to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we’re going to do at a particular time. Let’s focus like a laser on continuing to get those cases down,” he said at the time.

“And we can do it by people getting vaccinated. Also, in the situation where boosters are appropriate to get people boosted because we know they can help greatly in diminishing infection and diminishing advanced disease,” he added.

Fauci later said his remark was “taken completely out of context.”

“I mean, I say you hold off on that. I said we don’t know because we’ve seen slopes that went down and then came back up,” he said. “The best way to assure that we’ll be in good shape as we get into the winter would be to get more and more people vaccinated. That was misinterpreted as my saying we can’t spend Christmas with our families, which was absolutely not the case.”

He added:

I will be spending Christmas with my family. I encourage people, particularly the vaccinated people who are protected, to have a good, normal Christmas with your family. But … the way all of the other disinformation goes around, you say something talking about a landmark of a time, and it gets misinterpreted that I’m saying you can’t spend family Christmas time, which is nonsense. You can.

That would not be the first time Fauci has seemingly reversed course. He came under fire throughout the pandemic for flip flopping on masks on numerous occasions, first dismissing the need for them, only to end up seemingly supporting double masking after initially dismissing that as well.