Fauci says serving in the Trump administration was 'somewhat awkward'

• Anthony Fauci told the Harvard Business Review that his experience serving in the Trump administration was "somewhat awkward."
• "It's not a happy day when you have to get up in front of national TV and contradict something that the President of the United States says," Fauci said.
• Trump has repeatedly undermined Fauci's assessments and guidance about the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday that his experience serving in the Trump administration has been "somewhat awkward."

"It's not a happy day when you have to get up in front of national TV and contradict something that the president of the United States says," Fauci said in an interview with Harvard Business Review. "I take no pleasure in that at all."

Fauci, who has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, has worked with every US president since Ronald Reagan.

But President Donald Trump has repeatedly contradicted Fauci's assessment of the pandemic and pushed back against necessary public-health measures.

"People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots," Trump said in a campaign phone call in October, according to a recording obtained by CNN.

Trump has both suggested that Fauci downplayed the virus' severity at the start of the pandemic and also called him an "alarmist."

Fauci, meanwhile, has scrambled to correct misinformation circulated by the president - including Trump's false claims that the US was "rounding the corner" on the pandemic and that 99% of US cases were "totally harmless."

Fauci told Harvard Business Review that he made a personal commitment decades ago to "always stand by facts and evidence and never be afraid - in a respectful way, in a non-confrontational way - to say what the truth is."

But the current administration, he added, made that goal challenging.

"It's been particularly problematic here because that would often put me in direct conflict - not emotional conflict, but factual conflict - with what the president might say," Fauci said. "So obviously that has not been an easy thing to do."

An initial war of words

Fauci joined Trump's coronavirus task force in late January 2020, shortly after the first coronavirus case was reported in the US. The following month, Trump falsely claimed the virus would "miraculously" go away in April due to "the heat."

Fauci warned at the time, however, that "it would be a stretch to assume" the virus would "disappear with the warm weather."

In March, Trump and Fauci clashed over hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that hasn't been found to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection or improve outcomes for hospitalized patients. Trump initially touted the drug as a "game changer" in the pandemic, while Fauci underscored that hydroxychloroquine was not a proven treatment.

In April, Trump retweeted a call to fire Fauci after the disease expert said the US could have saved more lives by implementing swifter containment measures.

According to reporter Bob Woodward's book, "Rage," Trump deliberately misled the public about the dangers of the virus because he did not want to cause panic. Woodward also reported that Fauci privately said Trump's attention span was "like a minus number" and told an associate that Trump's "sole purpose is to get reelected."

Fauci told Fox News that he did not recall making those statements.

Fauci and Trump clashed again in October, when the Trump campaign ran an out-of-context clip that suggested Fauci was praising the president's coronavirus response. Fauci told CNN that he didn't give the campaign permission to use his words.

"By doing this against my will, they are in effect harassing me," he said. "Since campaign ads are about getting votes, their harassment of me might have the opposite effect of turning some voters off."

The Trump administration's attempt to silence Fauci

The Trump administration has made several attempts to silence Fauci.

In April, Trump blocked Fauci from answering a reporter's question about whether any medical evidence supported hydroxychloroquine's effectiveness. Then in May, the White House prohibited Fauci from testifying about the US coronavirus response before the House Appropriations Committee.

When The Atlantic asked Fauci in July whether the Trump administration had attempted to limit his TV interviews, Fauci responded: "I can't make a comment on that, but I think you know what the answer to that is."

The following month, the White House Coronavirus Task Force held a meeting to discuss a major change to the nation's coronavirus testing guidelines while Fauci was in surgery. The revised guidelines suggested that people without coronavirus symptoms didn't need tests, even if they'd been exposed to the virus. Research has shown, however, that about 50% of coronavirus transmission comes from people who aren't showing symptoms.

"I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations," Fauci told CNN. "I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is."

The altered guidance on testing was later reversed.

Then in September, emails obtained by Politico showed that Paul Alexander, a former scientific advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services, had instructed press officers at the National Institutes of Health to ensure that Fauci did not recommend masks for children. Widespread evidence suggests that mask-wearing among both kids and adults can lower coronavirus transmission.

Fauci's role under Biden

Fauci has been asked to continue leading the US coronavirus response under President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on Thursday.

Fauci told Harvard Business Review that he expects the country to meet Biden's goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days in office.

The Biden administration is "going to be doing things that have not been done before," Fauci said. The new administration, he went on, has committed to expanding partnerships with pharmacies and community vaccination centers. It has also promised to invoke the Defense Production Act - which allows the president to require businesses to prioritize the federal government's supply-chain needs - to acquire more needles and syringes.

But Fauci said health officials are still having a difficult time convincing all Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing.

"There are people who feel that when we say to avoid congregate settings or wear a mask that, somehow or other, we're encroaching upon something that really has nothing to do with public health - it's like their freedom," Fauci said. "I think that that's because there's been mixed messages that have come through Washington."

Additionally, he said, the false notion that the virus is a hoax - a common refrain among Trump supporters - is unlike anything he has seen before in public health.

"When we go back and look at this in the history, we'll be scratching our heads and saying, 'How did that happen?'" Fauci said.