President Donald Trump unleashed on Dr. Anthony Fauci Tuesday morning after a trove of previously private diaries revealed the former COVID czar may have misled Congress about the virus fatality rate.
Trump told Fox News host Steve Doocy that Fauci’s star power depended entirely on who was in the room — and with Trump, the doctor was never the star.
“When he was with Biden, he was like the God. When he was with me, he wasn’t even close.”
The president made clear he was never under Fauci’s spell. Looking back, Trump said he would have fired the controversial bureaucrat if he’d known then what he knows now — and he barely listened to him anyway.
Trump blasted Fauci’s flip-flops on face coverings during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling out the dizzying back-and-forth guidance that confused millions of Americans.
“He started off saying, ‘Don’t wear them.’ Then he said, ‘Wear them.’ Then he said, ‘Don’t wear them.’ And I lost a lot of respect for him during the period of time,” Trump said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?'”
The president’s remarks follow Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul’s release of Fauci’s personal diaries ahead of the doctor’s expected testimony Wednesday. The diaries appear to show Fauci misled Congress about the coronavirus fatality rate in the pandemic’s early days.
Trump slammed Fauci’s push to lock down the entire nation, boasting that he stepped in as a federalist to let state governors make the call instead of bowing to Washington bureaucrats.
While blue-state governors locked their doors and threw away the keys, Trump pointed out that red states opened fast — and fared far better.
“He wanted everything closed. It just turned out that closing wasn’t so good… Some of the states that fared the worst in terms of the spread were actually closed. OK, explain that. Nobody can explain that.”
Trump said he always maintained COVID came straight out of a Wuhan lab — a theory mainstream media and Fauci initially dismissed. He touted his administration’s success with Operation Warp Speed and producing ventilators for the world.
The president made clear he kept his distance from the career bureaucrat. While he didn’t hate Fauci personally, Trump said he couldn’t stand the doctor’s policies.
Then he took a parting shot at President Biden for rolling out the red carpet.
Not only did Biden treat Fauci like royalty, Trump noted, but he handed him a high-ranking post and a presidential pardon.
“I didn’t agree with what he was saying or what he was doing. And when Biden came in, he inherited him and he gave him a tremendously high position. And then he gave him a pardon.”
Fauci is scheduled to testify before Congress Wednesday — his first public appearance since the diary revelations surfaced.
