CNN’s Chris Cuomo went head-to-head with Kevin Gough, the lawyer for one of the Ahmaud Arbery murder defendants in a civil but intense conversation about the ongoing trial.

Gough represents Roddie Bryan, the third man who followed Travis and Gregory McMichael last year as they chased down Arbery before shooting him to death.

The dust-up began as Gough contended that “the Arbery family is the most well-lawyered family in America right now.”

“This isn’t about just the Arberys," Cuomo correctly pointed out that the prosecutors in the trial were actually appointed by the state. "This is about the whole community that was wronged when the laws were broken and someone was killed illegally.”

From there, Cuomo pivoted the conversation to Gough’s controversial request to remove Black pastors from the courtroom during the trial. Gough claimed Cuomo would’ve done “exactly the same thing” in his position, to which Cuomo shot back, "No, I wouldn’t!”

Cuomo has a law degree but has spent most of his career in the media. Still, he expressed a better understanding of the proper role of the prosecutors in our justice system, and called out Gough on his egregious comments. It was a fair, but necessary, dismantling of a defense attorney's hyperbole. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a popular target for many conservative commentators but says he takes it as a “badge of honor” to be attacked by people like Peter Navarro and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson who spread misinformation about the coronavirus.

MSNBC's Ari Melber had Fauci on his show Tuesday evening, and asked the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director for his reactions to what people have been saying about him around the Internet.

“I’m not in it for a popularity contest," Fauci replied. "I have devoted my entire professional career to try and safeguard and preserve the health and lives of the American people.”

“As an infectious disease doctors who deals with outbreaks, that gets extended to the rest of the world. That’s what I do,” Fauci continued. “The praise or the arrows and slings are irrelevant. I do what science drives you to do, and that’s what I do. I’m not in it for a popularity contest. I’m trying to save lives. The people who weaponize lies are killing people."

Mediaite's Ken Meyer has a detailed breakdown on the misinformation and attacks on Fauci that Carlson and Navarro have promoted. It's a damning list, with both men repeatedly using Fauci as a piñata to smack around to push their own partisan rhetoric.