Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show Friday night and drew a stark comparison of the Trump administration and the Biden administration when it comes to both science and transparency.
Fauci said that under the Trump administration “science was distorted and or rejected 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.”
“I had pressure put on me but I resisted it,” Fauci continued. “I had to do something that was not comfortable but I did it and I had to be directly contradicting the president and some of the people around the president who were saying things that were not consistent with the science. I am not a political appointee so this whole idea about ‘we're going to fire him' and that kind of stuff, I didn't want to be at odds with the president because I have a lot of respect for the office of the presidency. But there was conflict at different levels with different people at different organizations and a lot of pressure being put on to do things that were just not consistent with the science. And I think the only way that happens is when you have leadership from the very top and people surrounding the leadership that let that happen. It's a real aberrancy. I've served now — this is my seventh administration. I've advised presidents on both sides of the aisle and even with differences in ideology there was never this affront on science. It's chilling when you see it happen.”
Fauci added: “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 and it's just gotten blocked. I mean, let's call it what it is, it just got blocked. Because they didn't like how you handle things. And they didn't want me on there. It was so clear. ‘Why would you want to go on Rachel Maddow?' ‘Well, because I like her and she's really good.'… ‘It doesn't make any difference, don't do it.' I don't think you're gonna see that now. I think you're going to see a lot of transparency. … And that goes along with what you said before about different types of pressures that are put on. It was a tough situation. It really was.”
Fauci also said we're just weeks away from a single dose vaccine.
He added that the U.S. is studying the lingering effects of COVID-19 infection very intensely.
As well as studying therapeutics.
