In a new interview, former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci accused former President Trump’s staff of misinforming Trump and making him “infuriated” about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci, who spent his career at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and served under both the Trump and Biden administrations, became the face of the U.S. response to the pandemic.
In recent years, he has become a nemesis on the right for fighting President Trump’s baseless claims about the virus and urging Americans to get vaccinated.
In an interview with former Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson at the Lincoln Theatre on Friday, Fauci said he and Trump got along “very well” at times, but added that when stay-at-home and social distancing orders were first issued in March 2020, the former president complied with them in the “understandable but unrealistic” hope that it would just be flu-like symptoms that would “magically go away.”
“And I said, you know, that’s not the case,” the doctor said, adding that the disagreement took place in front of reporters.
Fauci said he disagreed with statements that the virus would go away soon, saying “that’s not the nature of this disease.”
“We have to accept that. It’s a different disease,” he said.
But the doctor continued, “Trump didn’t seem all that upset with me, but his staff became increasingly infuriated that I had done it.”
After the former president claimed that hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria, could treat COVID-19 and Dr Fauci publicly denied it, the White House team “started trying to discredit everything I said,” he said.
“The White House communications team, for the first time, from what I’ve heard from White House officials, has conducted an opposition investigation of one of its own staffers,” he claimed.
Fauci’s comments were made at an event at the Lincoln Theatre where he spoke about his new book, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey as a Public Servant.”
Fauci became emotional during a recent appearance on Capitol Hill, his first time addressing lawmakers since retiring about 18 months ago, as he described the harassment and death threats he and his family continue to face.
And in a late-night interview earlier this week, Fauci said he wasn’t trying to undermine Trump by deflecting to pandemic-related messaging because he has “a lot of respect” for the presidency.
But he said he had to speak out against the former president “because he was saying things that were not true.”
Joseph Choi contributed.
