Anthony Fauci Says Trump's Staff 'Went Crazy' During COVID

Anthony Fauci has opened up about vitriol he faced as the White House's chief medical adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeming to toss blame to some people around Donald Trump rather than the former president.

Fauci told Science about the way he was perceived by a portion of the country as the pandemic unraveled quickly as he became a target for conservatives who disagreed with his assessments on possible remedies and shutdowns.

An immunologist, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) who retired in December after 38 years became the face of the domestic COVID response and wasn't afraid to challenge Trump on various statements he made. It led to death threats and requiring around-the-clock security for his safety.

"I happened to be the guy that really pissed off the far right, by being the person who spoke up against [former President Donald] Trump," Fauci said. "When you look, I never really disparaged him at all. I always said, 'What he's saying is not true.' The president was very little fazed. After I would say it, he would be just as friendly to me. The staff around him went crazy."

Public messaging at the outset of the pandemic caused more confusion in a time when people not just in America but globally were grappling with coronavirus. Part of it was due to how Fauci and Trump interacted publicly and privately, refuting one another on multiple occasions.

In March 2020, Fauci refuted Trump's suggestion for Americans to look into taking the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a method to prevent infection, referring to the evidence as anecdotal.

When asked why so many were so angry with him, Fauci, 82, said it was a variety of factors that made him the scapegoat.

"The far radical right was angry, and when people are angry, they need to channel their anger, otherwise it fizzles out," he said. "You have to have a devil. I was trying my very best to get people to take the virus seriously when the president was not taking it seriously.

"When the vaccine came, I was telling people to get vaccinated because it's lifesaving. I was the person who was on television almost every night who wasn't afraid to tell it like it is."

He added that there were many good people in the Trump White House, but some viewed him as going "up against the Great One."

Fauci discussed Trump and COVID with MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan last week, saying he had an obligation to the American people, even if it caused him to be "the object of the anger" by Trump acolytes.

"I'm the one who had to—in an uncomfortable way, I wasn't pleased with that, I wasn't happy to do it—that I had to publicly disagree with the president of the United States," Fauci said on Thursday. "That was very painful for me because I have a great deal of respect for the presidency of the United States.

"But I felt, in order to just maintain my own personal and professional integrity, and my responsibility to the American public, I had to say it like it was and I had to do it publicly."

He also said that comments from people like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who told a crowd in 2022 that "someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac," encouraged people who are "bad and want to hurt people."

Megyn Kelly recently interviewed Trump on her SiriusXM podcast The Megyn Kelly Show, saying that instead of firing Fauci, he made him a star. She asked Trump if he wanted a "do-over" on giving him a presidential commendation.

Trump said he was unaware who gave Fauci the commendation. But on his second-to-last day in office in January 2021, Trump issued commendations to Fauci and dozens of others who worked on Operation Warp Speed to develop the COVID-19 vaccine.

Newsweek reached out to Trump officials via email for comment.