Fauci tells Chris Wallace of ‘painful’ messaging under Trump
by Dominick Mastrangelo - 04/06/22 11:46 AM ET
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, appeared this week on Chris Wallace’s new streaming show for CNN and bemoaned the challenges he says he faced while crafting messaging around the coronavirus pandemic during former President Trump’s administration.
“How tough was that, dealing with and sharing a podium with a president who … was dispensing misinformation?” Wallace asked Fauci, according to a transcript of their conversation.
“Yes, it was very painful,” Fauci answered. “And that’s the reason why I had to do something that I know alienated a lot of the Trump people, in fact, maybe all of the Trump people. But I had to … go to the podium and say, ‘I’m sorry, I disagree with you.’ “
According to Fauci, after he would rebuke Trump’s assertions about pandemic science, treatments and preventive measures, the then-president never took Fauci aside or spoke to him privately about the public disagreements, he said.
“But his staff declared war on me. And war on me was they did sort of opposition research on me and sent out information that I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Fauci told Wallace. “So, my position in the White House became extremely uncomfortable and, in fact, untenable, because I kept on telling the truth.”
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https://thehill.com/news/3260434-fauci-tells-chris-wallace-of-painful-messaging-under-trump/
