Dr. Fauci says working under the Biden administration is ‘liberating’ [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said that it was more “liberating” to work under President Joe Biden’s administration during a White House press conference on Thursday.
• Fauci said that his guts to go against former President Donald Trump’s pandemic dispositions were the reason why he got sidelined.
• He said, though, that the Trump administration has laid some good foundation in mitigating the coronavirus.

The country’s top infectious expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday that it’s a “liberating feeling” to work under the new presidency of Joe Biden following his working relationship with former President Donald Trump.

Speaking with reporters at the White House, Fauci was asked if he feels “less constrained” working with Biden’s administration as he regularly had disputes with Trump over his ideas and recommendations.

“I can tell you I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something that you didn’t feel you could actually say something and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it,” he said, adding that the “idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence and science is, and know that’s it — let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”

As a key member of Trump’s COVID-19 task force, Fauci frequently held press conferences to speak about issues relating to the pandemic. Over time, he ended up being sidelined as the former president did not agree with his stand and propositions. There were also instances where he went against Trump’s claims such as the latter’s suggestion to use hydroxychloroquine drugs to fight the coronavirus.

“It was very clear that there were things that were said regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci said.

He also shared that his eagerness to go against Trump was the reason why he “got in trouble sometimes.” He now emphasized that it was not the situation in terms of working with Biden.

“One of the things that was very clear as recently as about 15 minutes ago when I was with the president, is that one of the things we’re going to do is be completely transparent, open and honest. If things go wrong, not point fingers but correct them, and to make everything we do be based on science and evidence. That was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago with the president, and he has said that multiple times,” Fauci said.

Nonetheless, the infectious disease expert said that the Trump administration has done commendable efforts such as launching the inoculation campaign for COVID-19 vaccines across the country. He rebuked a CNN report that suggested that Biden’s administration was beginning from scratch.

“We’re coming in with fresh ideas, but also some ideas that were not bad ideas with the previous administration. You can’t say it was absolutely not usable at all,” he noted, adding that “it’s taking what’s going on, but amplifying it in a big way.”

Source: The Hill