The World and Everything in It: July 30, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Congress demands answers Dr. Anthony Fauci is unwilling to give.

AUDIO: While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: We’ll have a report, plus commentary from WORLD’s Cal Thomas.

And, what’s being sold by the Democratic Socialists of America may be different than what they claim.

Also, discerning truth in the age of AI.

And later:

BRODZINSKI: I was told that researchers have been looking for this apple for 20 years.

Finding a fruit long believed to be extinct.

BROWN: It’s Thursday, July 30th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning!

BROWN: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran » American and Saudi forces have struck Iran-backed militias in Iraq. U.S. Central Command says the militias had fired more than 30 drones at American troops and Saudi oil facilities in three days. The militias say they lost 20 fighters.

Iraq's president says the U.S. and Saudi Arabia violated Iraqi sovereignty. Trump says Baghdad signed off.

And President Trump said Wednesday that more strikes against Iran were coming after Iran fired missiles at a US military base in Jordan.

TRUMP: We're gonna be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them. They know it'scoming . They're asking us not to do it, but, uh, you know, they tried shooting at last night. So we had five rockets shot going eight thousand five hundred miles an hour, and all five rockets were knocked down to the ground. But they nevertheless took a shot, so it's our turn

Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it struck and halted three tankers attempting to travel through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran continues to choke traffic in the strait, a critical artery for the world’s oil supply.

Contempt referral coming for Fauci after hearing » The Senate Homeland Security Committee may soon move to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he stonewalled lawmakers at a Wednesday hearing.

Fauci was the nation’s top infectious disease doctor when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

Committee Chairman Rand Paul subpoenaed him after Fauci declined to appear voluntarily.

PAUL:  The American people deserve answers.

GOP members demanded answers to many questions, but they only got one answer and they got it exactly 111 times.

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Sen. Josh Hawley decided to test whether there was any question Fauci would answer.

HAWLEY: What color tie are you wearing?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

...What color is the carpet?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel…

Republicans contend that he did not have a right to plead the Fifth.

The top Democrat on the panel, Sen. Gary Peters, dismissed the entire hearing as partisan point-scoring.

PETERS:  This hearing appears to be a culmination of months of biased and selected efforts by the majority under the guise of a committee investigation

We’ll have much more on that hearing later in the program.

Fed leaves rates alone » The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday. But it wasn’t unanimous. Three Fed policymakers voted instead to raise rates a quarter point, to push harder on inflation.

Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh:

WARSH: I asked for a good family fight, and I got one. That's the purpose. That's the design feature. I come into th- this meeting, even this press conference, heartened by what I've experienced the last two days. Most of our discussion were on the big questions that matter to the conduct of monetary policy. We, we didn't sort of hide from them. We weren't scared of them

The Fed says the Middle East conflict has added uncertainty, while rising energy costs have put upward pressure on inflation.

Warsh has also stopped telling markets in advance what the Fed plans to do. He says the target itself is not negotiable:

WARSH: There is no soft inflation target, not on this committee's watch. There's only a target, and it's 2%.

Wall Street now believe the odds slightly favor a rate increase in September.

Japan earthquake » Japanese soldiers are digging through a collapsed shopping mall and a paper mill smokestack looking for people still alive. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the Kumamoto area of southwestern Japan Tuesday. At least 18 people are dead, more than 60 injured, and that number has kept rising.

The mall's second floor collapsed, and an apparent gas explosion tore through another part of the building.

At the paper mill, a smokestack came down on the crew killing at least five people, and rescuers think more are still buried under it. Rescuers are working in 90-degree heat.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi calls it a race against time.

More than 9,000 people are in shelters, and tens of thousands of homes have no power.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

European wildfires » Two firefighters died Wednesday fighting a wildfire on the Greek island of Crete. Authorities cleared several villages there.

It comes amid a rash of wildfires stretching from France to the eastern Mediterranean.

And investigators think the biggest fire burning in France started with a crew clearing brush near a high-voltage power line … doing work that appears to have followed the safety rules.

That fire has made its own weather. Its smoke column turned into a thunderstorm … the first time that’s ever happened in France. And the lightning it generated sparked new fires.

More than two thousand firefighters are battling the flames.

Kentucky governor demands McConnell show he’s fit for office » Kentucky's governor is calling on Republican Senator Mitch McConnell to prove he can still do the job or step down. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has that story.

BENJAMIN EICHER: Democrat Andy Beshear put his demand in a letter this week.

McConnell is 84. The longtime Kentucky senator fell at home in June and has been in rehab since, more than 40 days away from the Capitol.

If McConnell were to step down, state law now says a special election would choose his replacement. The legislature took away the governor's power to fill a Senate vacancy two years ago.

But due to some unclear language in the state constitution, Beshear could attempt to appoint a replacement, to force the matter into the courts.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher. 

I'm Kent Covington. Plus, discerning truth in the age of AI.

Straight ahead: More on that contentious hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Plus, discerning truth in the age of AI. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 30th of July.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up: Dr. Fauci takes the hot seat.

As you heard a few moments ago, the Senate Homeland Security Committee subpoenaed Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify yesterday.

REICHARD: Lawmakers asked him about private journal entries that appear to undermine his public statements during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they didn’t get the answers they were looking for.

WORLD’s Harrison Watters reports from Washington.

AUDIO: [Reporters pepper Fauci with questions as he enters.]

HARRISON WATTERS: Fauci returned to Congress with an entourage of lawyers and, critically, a full pardon. President Joe Biden signed it preemptively on his way out of office, barring the door to future criminal charges.

Chairman Rand Paul of Kentucky said that doesn’t absolve Fauci from answering questions about his public service.

PAUL: While you concluded publicly that COVID occurred naturally, your private record tells a different story.

Last week, Chairman Paul released Fauci’s digital diary. The entries contain a mix of previously private updates on COVID-19 and notes about media appearances and publicity. In an entry from January 2020, Fauci recalls appearing at a White House press briefing. He later got a call.

PAUL: Your hand-picked virologist warned that the virus appeared to have been manipulated in the lab.

Fauci went on to investigate his institute’s funding of the Wuhan lab where Chinese researchers were doing gain of function research. That process can involve altering — often enhancing — a virus in a lab, making it more infectious or dangerous so scientists can study it.

He privately concluded “we could not let this go.” But in public statements, Dr. Fauci downplayed the very same theory.

PAUL: Your primary concern was hiding the fact that you had approved the funding for this dangerous research.

In his opening statement, Dr. Fauci said he respected Congress, but accused Sen. Paul of having a personal vendetta against him, and said he would not provide any answers.

That did not stop Republican lawmakers from grilling him. Florida Senator Rick Scott.

RICK SCOTT: Have you deleted, destroyed, or instructed anyone to destroy records after learning Congress is investigating these matters?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

But Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said Fauci has no Fifth Amendment shield against self-incrimination, because he was in no danger of being prosecuted.

Supreme Court precedent from 1896 holds that pardoned individuals can be compelled to testify to Congress.

HAWLEY: This isn't about the Constitution, this isn't about the law. This is about contempt, contempt for this body and contempt for the American people.

Hawley also questioned Fauci about multiple cash awards he received as a public official, including one for nearly $1 million. While federal officials can be eligible for some public service awards, Hawley questioned the ethics of Fauci’s staff inquiring about his eligibility.

HAWLEY: You cannot use federal resources, federal dollars, federal employees, federal offices, federal email, federal time to solicit cash awards, and you did all of it, and the worst part is, thousands of people were dying while you were doing it.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman took a different approach. The Democrat admitted he was wrong to dismiss the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory while serving as Lt. Governor.

FETTERMAN: I think that the next time our nation's facing something like this, we are not become, you know, as I might have been, blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that's different than than you are…

Meanwhile, other Democrats didn’t question Fauci at all. They instead made speeches questioning the second Trump administration’s spending cuts, workforce reductions, and response to outbreaks of measles and food-borne parasites.

What happens next for Fauci isn’t clear. Though he declined to answer questions, when his attorney made multiple attempts to speak, Chairman Paul ruled him out of order.

PAUL: Security, please remove him from the room. (Applause)

Paul later told reporters that Fauci’s attorneys are in uncharted legal waters by advising him to plead the Fifth when he’s been pardoned.

PAUL: I think the courts will have to figure out whether or not, if you have a complete pardon, whether you have a liability against incrimination.

Senator Hawley said more needs to happen before Congress can move on from Dr. Fauci. He told WORLD that he’ll work to limit financial incentives for government employees going forward.

HAWLEY: We need to get the truth so that we can make sure this never happens again. And tomorrow, I will introduce legislation to bar all federal employees from soliciting cash prizes or taking cash prizes while they are in office.

Next week, the committee will vote on whether to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt of Congress. If a majority of the full Senate agrees, the Justice Department would then decide whether to prosecute.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters…in Washington.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It the socialism experiment.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and his supporters are pushing what they call democratic socialism. They want to move forward with state-run grocery stores, minimal policing, and open immigration. They’ve pointed to the social democracy model popular in Scandinavian countries as an example of successful socialism.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But while the two models share some common terms, the similarities may end there. WORLD’s Lauren Smyth has the story.

LAUREN SMYTH: Robert Ericsson spent years as a staffer and an advisor to Sweden’s Parliament. That experience gave him a deep knowledge of the country’s political system:

ROBERT ERICSSON: We're not talking here East Germany 1972, but more of a modern state embracing capitalism, but regulated capitalism. We have a very strong mix of a very free, open economy, especially when it comes to international investments and entrepreneurship—but also a strong welfare state.

In Sweden, that’s called “social democracy.” It’s characterized by private business ownership in a capitalist economy, with high taxes that fund a generous welfare state.

To American ears, that doesn’t sound much like socialism. Compare his dismissal of government-run businesses to Mayor Mamdani’s plans for publicly owned grocery stores:

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Once a month, our five city-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices.

And compare Ericsson’s favorable description of capitalism to Mamdani’s response in a Forbes interview:

REPORTER: Do you like capitalism?

MAMDANI: No, I have many critiques of capitalism.

Mamdani, his supporters, and a growing number of American political candidates belong to the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA. They say working people should run both the economy and society, and that profits should be spread among the people.

The organization recently announced it has approximately 120,000 members. That makes it the largest socialist organization in U.S. history…though it makes up a smaller percentage of the population than the Socialist Party of the early 20th century.

Sweden’s “social democracy” and “democratic socialism” in the US seem to share similarities. Mamdani’s remarks on ABC’s The View suggest he’d agree:

CO-HOST : So you’re sort of like a Scandinavian type of politician, I would say, right?

MAMDANI: Yeah. A little more brown, but yes.

Others argue there’s a chasm of ideological difference.

JAKE ALTMAN: And unfortunately, rather than moving in a direction of social trust, like many of the Scandinavian countries, I see us moving in a very dangerous sectarian direction, fueled by DSA in part.

Jake Altman spent a decade as a DSA member. He says he’s often heard DSA supporters say they’re just trying to bring Scandinavia to the US.

ALTMAN: My view is that they’re doing so disingenuously because that is not the policy platform we’ve seen them put forward, and there are great, great distinctions between capitalist Scandinavian countries and what DSA is advocating.

In practice, American democratic socialism and Scandinavian social democracy play out with vastly different policies. For example, the DSA’s New York chapter strongly opposed increasing funding and officer headcount for the NYPD. Meanwhile, Sweden is expanding its police force.

Attitudes toward immigration policy also differ. Here’s DSA co-chair Megan Romer responding to a Fox News reporter:

REPORTER: And I wanna ask you, just give me a sort of true or false on these … Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US illegally?

MEGAN ROMER:As a long-term plan, yup.

And Robert Ericsson again on the popular Swedish view:

ERICSSON: Of course you can have migration, as long as it’s regulated. If it’s unregulated, it doesn’t matter if it’s migration, if it’s taxed, if it’s whatever—it will eventually become an anarchy. It doesn’t matter which ideology you have, which belief system you have. You need to regulate things.

Public trust, a strong sense of community, and shared values underpin the Scandinavian system. That can’t be built overnight. Ericsson believes Mamdani and his supporters are pushing too many changes, in the wrong places, too fast.

ERICSSON: I would say, I would welcome the mayor to come to Sweden, to come to Stockholm, which is run currently by the Social Democratic Party, and see what they are doing that we can adapt or modify to adapt to the city of New York.

Jake Altman says there’s little chance Mamdani would accept that invitation. The DSA parted ways with a group known as Socialist International, a moderate global organization that includes the Swedish Social Democratic Party. Instead:

ALTMAN: They are in the Progressive International, which is very anti-American, very anti-imperialist, very willing to defend Putin, very willing to defend Maduro, very willing to defend the Cuban regime. So even that is very telling about where their actual loyalties lie. It’s not with the Scandinavian social democracies.

WORLD reached out multiple times over several weeks to the DSA and other American socialist organizations but they did not respond. Altman says based on his experience with the group, its members unite behind something other than a single economic or political philosophy.

ALTMAN: I think the glue that holds it all together is this very profound anti-American sentiment inside the organization, and this view they have that the United States is the greatest evil in the world.

More than 150 candidates backed by national or local DSA branches have made the ballot for federal, state, and local offices across the country this year. So far, 38 have advanced beyond their primaries.

For WORLD, I’m Lauren Smyth.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming next: AI and Truth!

An Australian influencer who goes by Lily Jay started using her online platform to promote her conversion to Islam last year.

Jay sometimes wears a hijab over her blonde hair and has been documenting her new faith in front of her three million Instagram followers. She often posts videos in which she asks ChatGPT faith questions.

JAY: Hey ChatGPT, I have a question. Does Islam oppress women? 

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: But earlier this month ABC News Australia exposed a trail of AI-generated fakery…involving an orphanage Jay says her foundation established in Uganda. Differentiating between the truth and fake AI content is growing more difficult. Joining us to help us make sense of it all is Abdu Murray. He’s a former Muslim who converted to Christianity… and the author of, Fake ID: How AI and Identity Ideology Are Collapsing Reality and What to Do About It.

Good morning Abdu

ABDU:Good morning, Myrna.

BROWN: Lily Jay seems to be part of a growing trend of young people using conversion to Islam as a tool to influence the masses. What are you seeing?

ABDU: Well, I think that you're absolutely right, and I think that what's interesting about the Lily J case specifically is the way and how she looks, really. A big part of it is that she doesn't look like a typical convert to Islam. We might think of someone who's Middle Eastern or Asian or South Asian or African who might convert to Islam because of the influence of Islam in those areas. Lily J is a blonde woman with blue eyes, fair complexion. She's a former actress and singer, and really has this like persona about her, and so she used her conversion to Islam as an influencer to really generate quite a bit of buzz, especially now that Islam is in the news. But, what's interesting is that people have looked at it and said, "What's going on here exactly? Because here's this woman with an Australian accent, referencing Islamic materials and sources and using the Arabic words for those things, but she doesn't always wear the hijab. She doesn't always do that, so she looks almost like a glam influencer.

BROWN: And so part of the allure if you will, is because she doesn’t fit the stereotype. Is that it?

ABDU: Yes, I think also what you're seeing is the allure of the appearance being as strong as the arguments in favor of a religious conversion. So you hear you have this person who you would think, given their environment, the way they look, the way they act, all these things would never convert to Islam, given sort of the view that we have that it oppresses women. And here she is acting like she's found liberation in Islam as a Western woman, and so it really does create a specter that hey, maybe if I'm a woman and I'm sitting around thinking I don't know about my life, I don't know ultimate purpose, I want to find truth, and then you stumble across Lily J, and you're thinking, look how confident and how able she is to be sort of maintain her Western identity, but also be a Muslim. Maybe I can do that too. And so, independent of the strength of the arguments in favor of her worldview, her appearance is as compelling as anything else might be because of the way she acts.

BROWN: Gone are the days that you can distinguish what is real and what is fake by simply looking at an image or video. You say we’ve gone from “post-truth” to “post-trust.” Talk about where we are right now in this AI age and where you think it’s going.

ABDU: So many things are easily generatable and can get such influence before anybody calls it out that we don't know what's true anymore, and that's at the at the heart of what I call reality collapse. Reality itself doesn't collapse, but our perception of reality collapses to the point now where we just don't trust anything. I mean, I make the joke oftentimes that if UFOs actually did come to the Earth and aliens actually did arrive and want to speak to our leaders, and we saw it on video, the first thing we'd say is, "Well, that's AI. We wouldn't even believe it. Now, what's interesting is we…it's not that we distrust AI it’s that we distrust the people using AI, and AI allows some dishonest people to do some dishonest things.

BROWN: You’ve written, “those three million followers Lily Jay has on social media stand to lose so much, especially when evidence is manufactured.” What do you mean by that?

ABDU: If you're a person who's been skeptical, who's been thinking through what worldview is true, and you find her and you get excited about maybe Islam is true, look at the proof she's offering on her videos, and then you find out that her videos also offer AI deep fakery. Now what do you do? The cost isn't just to Lily Jay’s reputation; it's actually to the view that the person has as to whether or not they can know if anything is true. And so, skepticism that turned to belief is now transformed into cynicism. And how tough is it to break through cynicism, indeed.

BROWN: What a ripple effect, right?

ABDU: Indeed.

BROWN: Wrapping up here…from a Christian perspective, celebrity-conversions are not uncommon and often end in disappointment. Is there a lesson for the church here?

ABDU: I can tell you, as someone who's converted to Christianity from Islam, there was a temptation and to go onto platforms and put a microphone in front of my face immediately after I converted because Christians were so elated. I still needed a lot more seasoning, a lot more maturity. Thank God, circumstances got in the way to keep me from putting a microphone or a camera in front of me. Now the temptation is far more because with the proliferation of social media, we can make something out of our converts as well. Lily J is simply the Islamic version of what we've done in many, many ways, and I could list the cases off. And my guess is that listeners already know who I'm speaking of, the number of celebrity Christians who have either said something completely theologically off mark or have gone off the rails emotionally or socially in some way, and so we get disappointed. The lesson here, here's the lesson, is that while we rejoice with conversion, we never forget two things. The first thing is this: is that Jesus is not only our Savior, but He's our Lord, which means that we are to be discipled by Him, and so celebrity is not a part of the discipleship process. It is the antithesis of the discipleship process because the Bible says for us to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and at the right time He will exalt us. And so, the more we try to generate platform, especially as new converts, the more danger we're in of undoing the good we've done through the news of our conversion and bringing ill repute to the church and to Christ Himself.

BROWN: Speaker, Author, Abdu Murray thank you for your time today.

ABDU: Thank you, Myrna.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: A mystery vigilante in Mexico is being called the “Batman of Lagos de Moreno.”

Police say he’s been chasing suspected motorbike thieves around town, then duct-taping them to lampposts.

At least five men were found tied to street poles over a 10-day stretch this summer. Some with the alleged stolen motorbikes right next to them.

Some had “thief” written on their faces … in Spanish.

Others reportedly had mustaches or cat whiskers drawn on them.

But police aren’t treating this like a superhero story.

Officials say the tied-up men are victims.

Now authorities are looking for the vigilante. So far, no arrests.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 30th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the apple no one expected to find.

Yesterday we told you about the hunt for lost apples. Today, one of the biggest surprises in decades when a Washington State University student stumbled on a discovery that shook the apple industry to its core.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: Last fall, Tayettin Brodzinski took a walk through the gardens near campus. She was hunting for an apple tree as part of a school project.

TAYETTIN BRODZINSKI: I looked up and I saw apples. I was like, Oh, it's golden delicious, because the apples were yellow. And I sent it in.

The project was simple: find an apple tree in the area to identify the variety. It has to be unique—meaning other students haven’t identified that particular tree.

So Brodzinski sent in a leaf sample to her professor, Cameron Peace.

BRODZINSKI: He was like, Do you know what you found? And I was like, It's just a golden delicious. And he was like, No, you found the holy grail of apples. And I was told that researchers have been looking for this apple for 20 years.

The tree sits on an easement between Lawson Gardens and a house in Pullman, Washington.

CAMERON PEACE: It must be more than 100 years old …

That’s Cameron Peace, professor of tree fruit genetics at WSU. Last fall, he tried to identify Brodzinski’s sample with DNA fingerprinting—literally comparing apples to apples.

The sample matched some DNA profiles in Washington state but there was nothing conclusive. Peace remembers waking up at 2am, thinking about the mystery…

PEACE: I wonder if this is Wallbridge, and I lay there a bit more, and I thought, hang on, if it's Wallbridge, that would make it late season.

The Walbridge apple, long believed to be extinct.

The next morning, Peace did some investigating.

PEACE: So I came right here, wandered around the gardens, trying to find where this tree was.

He analyzed the apple itself, spoke with fellow experts, and after rigorous testing they determined it was the Walbridge. Peace got in touch with Jean Cook, whose family used to own the land where Lawson Gardens is now.

Cook confirmed his suspicions, saying her father-in-law probably planted the Walbridge about 100 years ago.

PEACE: The original homestead house was here, just across the road here, and so this was probably one of several other homestead apple trees that were being grown at the time.

Now, researchers are propagating the Walbridge to bring it back to the Pacific Northwest. The cold-hardy variety stores well and won awards a century ago.

PEACE: It's got an intense sweetness and tartness to it. So, you know, Red Delicious is sweet but without the tartness. Granny Smith is more tart without the sweetness, etc. This is quite pleasantly high in both.

Peace says there are several reasons why apple varieties go extinct—like industrialization. Fruit had to be hardy or it would spoil in transport.

PEACE: To be a big orchard, to be a viable business, you needed to produce enough apples that stored well enough to last a long trip, you know, via rail across the country.

Large scale farms also replaced small, localized orchards that kept distinct varieties.

Another reason—trees that grow too fast are a hassle to keep. Peace says the Walbridge may have died out because orchardists thought it was too vigorous.

PEACE: They'll find any excuse for dropping anything off the list if you're going to go from hundreds down to, you know, a dozen.

Apple trees are tough to cultivate, because their seeds are genetically very different from the original tree from which it fell.

For example, if you planted a Walbridge apple seed, it would grow into a completely new kind of tree. To preserve a specific variety, it must be cloned through grafting a branch into a root system.

Dongyun Lee is a PhD student who works with Peace and he had an unusual—but creative—analogy for how true varieties are preserved.

DONGYUN LEE: If I would cut my finger and then nurture and then take care of it, that finger will become just me, clone, same individual as me. If I would have a baby, he's not gonna be me or mom. It's gonna be mix of us.

For Tayettin Brodzinski, finding the Walbridge apple showed her a career path forward. This fall, she’ll attend WSU for her master’s degree in horticulture to conduct more research on the apple.

Brodzinski says her discovery feels providential.

BRODZINSKI: God really gave me the fruit of the spirit at the end of the day.

For now, she’s planting an orchard in Montana where she plans to reintroduce Walbridge apples to big sky country.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Eicher in Pullman, Washington.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. When Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down to testify before Congress yesterday, he declined again and again to answer lawmakers’ questions. It was a sharp contrast for the man who had much to say during the pandemic. And WORLD Commentator Cal Thomas says it does the American people a disservice.

CAL THOMAS: We are born with an ego, from a baby’s first cry to our death. Most people learn to control it. Some give it free rein, and the fallout can be substantial.

This is not a partisan disease. I wrote recently about President Trump’s performance at the retooled White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where his insults were crude, personal, and beneath the office he holds. Even people who agree with many of his policies, as I do, can grow tired of the language and the self-focus.

So the president certainly comes to mind when the subject is ego. But this week, we have another example: Dr. Anthony Fauci, who rose to international fame during the COVID pandemic.

Thanks to Senator Rand Paul, we have more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s pandemic diary. It reveals a man with a high regard for himself: his celebrity status, his TV appearances, his place in public life.

But at Wednesday’s Senate hearing, the most revealing thing about Fauci was not what he said. It was what, again and again, he would not say.

FAUCI : On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer, based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

He said that, or a version of it, around one hundred times, according to The New York Times.

Legally, invoking the Fifth Amendment is not an admission of guilt. But politically and morally, it is quite a contrast. After years of telling Americans what to do, what to close, what to wear, what to inject, and whom to trust, the man who became the face of the science chose the language of legal self-protection.

Before leaving office, President Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci. It covered actions through January 19, 2025, but not new statements made under oath. So his lawyers may have had reason to tell him to remain silent.

That does not mean the American people should be satisfied.

Senator Paul asked Fauci whether American taxpayers funded risky research in China, whether American inspectors were present in the labs, and whether Fauci still believes gain-of-function research is worth the risk.

PAUL: Would you like to at least answer this one question for us today and let us know whether or not you’ve changed your mind on whether the benefits of gain-of-function research outweigh the risks?

FAUCI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

That may have been the most important non-answer of the day.

Americans want to know whether dangerous research was funded, whether it was properly supervised, and whether anyone in authority has learned anything.

During the pandemic, Fauci and the CDC often contradicted themselves. Schools were closed, and many students fell behind. Churches were closed, and some people were arrested for attending worship services or other gatherings. Meanwhile, Fauci sat for an InStyle magazine profile, photographed relaxing by his pool without a mask.

Senator Josh Hawley focused on that side of the Fauci story: not virology, but vanity.

HAWLEY: You could sit for InStyle magazine, but you can’t answer questions for the American people. You could sit for InStyle magazine, but you’re here taking the Fifth.

Hawley also accused Fauci of using federal employees and federal resources to pursue lucrative awards during the pandemic. Fauci declined to answer those questions, too.

HAWLEY: Somewhere along the line, it became all about you. You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar.

That is strong stuff. But Fauci’s own diary gives his critics plenty to work with. Fame rarely benefits an egotist.

The deeper issue is not whether Fauci made mistakes during a fast-moving crisis. Everyone did. The issue is whether he and other public-health officials spoke with certainty they did not possess and dismissed dissent they should have heard.

Humility would have served the country better than celebrity. That applies to presidents, scientists, senators and commentators. No one in public life is improved by self-worship.

As the old song says, Fame, if you win it, comes and goes in a minute. But trust, once lost, is much harder to recover.

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: it’s Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. And, a review of the summer superhero blockbuster Spiderman: Brand New Day. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.” —Psalm 26:1-3

Go now in grace and peace.

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