White House Health Minister Dr. Anthony Fauci said he did not “enjoy” contradicting former President Donald Trump over the Covid-19 pandemic and felt more free to discuss science without having to deal with it. the reaction of the new administration.
“The idea that you can stand up here and that you can talk about what you know, what evidence, what science is and you know what that is – let science speak. It’s a bit of a liberating feeling,” Fauci said Thursday in the his first White House press report in months.
Fauci, who now advises President Joe Biden, said he did not like to contradict Trump, who often made false claims about the severity of the pandemic and the drugs being developed to combat it.
“It was very clear that there were things that were said, whether it was about things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really [were] “It’s awkward because they weren’t based on scientific facts,” Fauci said. “I can tell you, I’m not at all happy to be in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something you didn’t feel you could actually say anything about and there would be no repercussions on that.”
He said it’s “a bit of a liberating feeling” to talk about science and “that’s it.”
Throughout the pandemic, Trump has repeatedly criticized the government’s top coronavirus adviser and even suggested firing him. Meanwhile, Fauci has rejected several comments from Trump, including his repeated claims that the U.S. fight against the virus “turned around” when in fact tens of thousands of people were infected daily.
Fauci made a not-so-subtle dig into his former head, when asked how the pandemic might have been different if a team like Biden’s had been in place from the start. “One of the things we’re going to do is be completely transparent, open and honest,” Fauci said. “If things go wrong, don’t point your fingers, but to correct them and make everything we do based on science and evidence.”
Fauci said he had discussed these same priorities with Biden about 15 minutes before entering the information room.
Trump, on the other hand, had constantly downplayed the threat of the virus. He regularly responded to any criticism of his administration’s approach to the pandemic and claimed that the United States, which has the highest number of coveted deaths of any country in the world, had responded to the virus better than almost any other nation. Although Fauci and Trump’s coronavirus working group held daily briefings near the start of the outbreak, these periodic updates were dismissed after Trump asked scientists if they could inject disinfectants or light into the body to kill the virus.
The press release came Thursday after Fauci told the World Health Organization earlier in the day that the U.S. would remain a member of the international agency headed by Biden. In May, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the WHO, but the process was not expected to be completed until this July.
Fauci said the Biden administration planned to work with the other 193 member states to help “strengthen and reform” the United Nations health agency.