Fauci criticised for complaining about Trump during Fox interview
The US has recorded more than 416,000 deaths due to the pandemic so far
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Your support makes all the difference.The US’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci came under fire on Fox News on Tuesday, when anchors accused him of spending too much time criticising Donald Trump’s presidency even as the pandemic rages on.
On Tuesday’s episode of the America’s Newsroom programme, co-host Dana Perino claimed that during his 28 minutes 30 seconds interview with the <i>New York Times</i> podcast, about 24 minutes were spent on discussing his relationship with President Trump rather than focusing on Covid-19.
Perino quipped that Dr Fauci seemed quite willing to answer questions about Mr Trump and asked: “Is there a law of diminishing returns to continue answering questions about that relationship if the crisis is as acute as you say?”
Dr Fauci, who is now president Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, agreed with Perino and emphasised that the focus should now be on the virus rather than the previous administration.
“I agree with you, Dana. And really, after that interview, I said to myself, we really got to look forward and ahead and just put that behind us,” said Dr Fauci.
“So, looking forward, I’m really not enthusiastic at all about re-examining what happened back then rather than looking forward to what we need to do now,” he said.
According to the World Health Organisation, with 24.9 million cases the US has the highest number of Covid-19 infections across the globe, including about 416,000 deaths.
Dr Fauci was part of Donald Trump’s task force to tackle Covid-19 but they frequently disagreed publicly over lockdown measures, the easing of restrictions, the threat of the pandemic, and controversial treatment techniques.
Since Mr Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, during his interviews with the Times and MSNBC News the 80-year-old expert has revealed some of the difficulties he had working with the Trump administration.
Dr Fauci revealed that he and his family faced harassment and death threats as early as March 2020. He revealed that during Mr Trump’s presidency scientists could not tell the truth as they felt that the president and his officials wanted to project that everything was under control and improving.
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