Dr. Anthony Fauci seemed bewildered that forced masking was seen as an assault on freedom during a Tuesday interview.

“When you tell people they need to mask in an indoor congregate setting, when you’re in a zone that has a high dynamic of infection, and that is looked up by a lot of people, not everybody, as an encroachment on your freedom, we’ve never had that before,” Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said while receiving an award from the Seattle Mariners. “I mean, it’s almost inexplicable.”

“It’s less about mandates on the plane than it is about who has the right and the authority and the capability of making public health decisions,” Fauci told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. “And I believe that the Department of Justice is operating on the principle that decisions that are public health decisions belong with the public health agency — in this case, the CDC.”

Fans at Tuesday’s Mariners game booed Fauci when he was presented with the Hutch Award by the team, with one fan yelling “You’re going to miss this like you did the pandemic, loser!”

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Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has come under fire for reports that his agency funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, where COVID-19 originated. He also supported an appeal of an injunction against a mask mandate in June.

“The mandate has been pulled back on the decision of the court, but that does not change the recommendation of the CDC, Neil, or my own personal preference,” Fauci said.

Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.