Former White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci was spared jail time for taunting Donald Trump early in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That’s only thanks to Joe Biden’s election in 2020.
President Kennedy, 70, has staunchly opposed the government’s response to the outbreak and is vocally skeptical of coronavirus vaccines.
In a podcast interview with Blaze Media CEO Glenn Beck published Saturday, Kennedy slammed the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Well, he’s not in jail because Joe Biden is president and unfortunately Donald Trump colluded with him or ran over him,” the New York native said. said the senator and son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy.
“Donald Trump knew what was wrong. He knew we shouldn’t shut down our businesses. And he knew about lockdowns and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. “I tried to speak up, but I was told by bureaucrats to shut up, and unfortunately I did as I was told,” Kennedy added, arguing that Trump “doesn’t deserve a second chance.” That’s why I’m in the office.
Fauci, now 83, was a prominent member of the Trump administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and was promoted to be Biden’s chief medical adviser on the Democratic Party’s COVID-19 task force until he retires at the end of 2022. .
The immunologist is a strong advocate of social distancing and gave deliberately contradictory advice on mask-wearing early in the pandemic, first advising the public not to cover their faces, then changing course. He claimed he was trying to avoid a shortage of protective equipment.
President Trump insists he didn’t fire Fauci, saying he didn’t have the ability to fire him, even though Fauci led daily briefings on the pandemic for months in his administration. He insisted that he was not a “big name” in the administration. Spring/summer 2020.
“First of all, you’re not allowed. He’s a public servant and you’re not allowed to fire him,” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt in 2023.
“But I don’t necessarily follow everything, so forget it. But Dr. Fauci told me something, and a lot of times I didn’t do it. But also , he was not an important figure in my administration.”
Not firing Fauci will be a hot topic for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary, as he criticizes the 45th president for giving doctors a platform to make public statements about controversial recommendations. criticized.
Kennedy also criticized the intense social pressures on what doctors are allowed to say about vaccines and the response to COVID-19 during the pandemic.
“Thousands of doctors who tried to tell the truth were punished, stripped of their licenses, gaslighted, vilified, demonized and silenced. It was truly criminal,” he told Beck. Told.
The newspaper cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changes in childhood development standards that came after coronavirus lockdowns forced children to stay indoors and wear masks. claimed to have happened.
“They’re trying to normalize what they did to our children, but the whole thing is very criminal and very corrupt,” President Kennedy said.
According to RealClearPolitics, RFK Jr. ranks first among third-party candidates in the 2024 election with an average approval rating of 8.8%.
