- Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading disease expert, said he was “stopped” by the Trump administration from going to MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow” program.
- “I’ve been wanting to go on your program for months and months,” Fauci told Maddow on Friday.
- Fauci openly expressed his feelings about working under Biden when compared to when he previously worked on the coronavirus task force under Trump.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical consultant to President Joe Biden, said he could not go to “The Rachel Maddow Show” because he was “prevented” from doing so under the Trump administration.
“I’ve been wanting to come to your program for months and months. For months and months you’ve asked me to participate in your program,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious, in an interview with Maddow. Friday. “And it just got blocked. Let’s call it what it is. It was only blocked because they didn’t like the way you handle things and they didn’t want me.”
Trump repeatedly attacked MSNBC and its reporters during his presidency, even mocking a reporter who was shot by the police with a rubber bullet in anti-racism protests last May.
Fauci said health officials would be more present and available to the media under Biden’s new government.
“I think you will see a lot of transparency,” said Fauci. “You may not see everyone as often as you want, but you won’t see retaining good people when the press asks for them.”
—Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 23, 2021
The day before Biden’s inauguration, the country’s top disease expert said that serving in the Trump administration was “somewhat strange”. At the beginning of the pandemic in the United States, Fauci was banned from speaking publicly about COVID-19 without approval. When he later warned against lifting blocking measures too early, Fauci disappeared from TV appearances.
“I don’t take much pleasure in criticizing the presidential leadership or the people around the president, but we have had a situation where science has been distorted and / or rejected,” said Fauci. “And a lot of pressure was put on individuals and organizations to do things that were not directly related to what their best opinion would be in relation to science,” Fauci told Maddow.
Fauci also recalled that he “resisted” this pressure and “had to do something that was not comfortable” by “directly contradicting the president and some people around him who said things that were not consistent with science”.
In an interview with CNN Friday, Fauci said that Biden wants to “redefine” the country’s approach to the virus and “let science speak”.
“We really need to restore trust and restore a unified approach,” he said.
During a briefing at the White House earlier this week, Fauci said, “It is a somewhat liberating feeling” not to work for Trump, who has repeatedly undermined his assessments and guidelines on the pandemic.
“The idea that you can come here and talk about what you know, what the evidence is – what science is, and knowing what it is, let science speak, is a somewhat liberating feeling,” said Fauci.
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