Fauci said he wanted to go on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show for 'months' but was 'blocked' under Trump administration

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top disease expert, said he was "blocked" under the Trump administration from going on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow" show.
• "I've been wanting to come on your show for months and months," Fauci told Maddow Friday.
• Fauci has openly expressed his feelings about working under Biden compared to when he previously worked on the coronavirus task force under Trump.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor, said that he could not go on "The Rachel Maddow Show," as he was "blocked" from doing so under the Trump administration.

"I've been wanting to come on your show for months and months. You've been asking me to come on your show for months and months," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious, told Maddow in an interview Friday. "And it's just gotten blocked. Let's call it what it is. It just got blocked because they didn't like the way you handle things, and they didn't want me on."

Trump had repeatedly attacked MSNBC and its reporters during his presidency, even mocking a reporter who had been shot by police with a rubber bullet at anti-racism protests last May.

Fauci said that health officials would be more present and available to the media under Biden's new administration.

"I think you're going to see a lot of transparency," Fauci said. "You might not see everyone as often as you want, but you're not going to see deliberate holding back of good people when the press asks for them."

—Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 23, 2021

A day before Biden's inauguration, the nation's top disease expert said serving in Trump's administration was " somewhat awkward." At the start of the pandemic in the US, Fauci was reportedly barred from speaking publicly about COVID-19 without approval. When he later warned against lifting lockdown measures too soon, Fauci disappeared from TV appearances.

"I don't take any great pleasure in criticizing presidential leadership or the people around the president, but we had a situation where science was distorted and/or rejected," Fauci said. "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 vis-a-vis the science," Fauci told Maddow.

Fauci also recalled that he "resisted" that pressure and "had to do something that was not comfortable" by "directly contradicting the president and some of the people around the president who were saying things that were not consistent with the science."

In an interview with CNN Friday, Fauci said Biden wants to "reset" the nation's approach to the virus and "let the science speak."

"We've really got to restore trust and restore a unified approach," he said.

During a White House briefing earlier this week, Fauci stated," it is somewhat of a liberating feeling" to no longer work under Trump, who repeatedly undermined his assessments and guidance about the pandemic.

"The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence - what the science is, and know that's it, let the science speak, it is somewhat of a liberating feeling," Fauci said.

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