WATCH: MSNBC pundits declare that ‘if COVID goes away, it’s bad for Republicans’

The people gathered were unanimously incredulous that people could think Dr. Fauci ever did anything wrong, and one of them, John Heilemann, even went as far as to openly suspect a Republican plot to prolong the pandemic:

"On Fox News a couple of nights ago, unchallenged prominent media figures comparing Dr. Fauci to a Nazi," starts in regular panel member Willie Geist.

"Yes, Yes!" interjects another panel member off-screen.

"Completely unchallenged by the hosts and by the panel. They're all nodding along, because that is part of the narrative."

"You go to the far reaches of Facebook, that's been a story for a long time, that Fauci is profiting off of the vaccine, all these things that aren't true."

"That moves into the mainstream of conservative media and it becomes gospel that he's a villain, and that somehow he's asserting his power by trying to get people vaccinated and protect the American public from this disease that has killed 700,000 people."

Regular guest to the show Heilemann (IMDB lists him as having 156 separate appearances on the show as a "self-contributor" to date) then chimes in with:

"If people follow Fauci, there’s a likelier chance that COVID will go away. And if COVID goes away, it’s bad right now for Republicans. The political math on this, it's not hard to figure out."

Host Joe Scarborough then calls for the next guest to be brought on.

MSNBC and other mainstream media news outlets are in the middle of a crisis of their own, as viewership continues to steadily trend downwards.