Anthony Fauci has made it clear that defeating the coronavirus pandemic will require buy-in from everyone. Yet he’s spent the past two weeks positioning himself as an adversarial figure to tens of millions who still support former President Donald Trump.
It was no secret that Fauci and Trump didn’t get along. But Fauci at least made the effort to remain professional while working with the Trump administration, urging news media not to create a rift between him and the former president that could affect millions of people’s health decisions. Now, however, he has dropped the act. He openly disparaged Trump during his first press conference with the Biden administration and has taken the opportunity to criticize him in every media interview since.
“Obviously, I don’t want to be going back over history, but it was very clear that there were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci told reporters when asked about the difference between Trump’s administration and Biden’s.
“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 that you could actually say something, and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it,” Fauci continued. “The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is, and know that’s it, let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”
Anyone who took the time to read the many magazine covers Fauci appeared on this past year, or watch the daily coronavirus press briefings he headlined, knows he was free to speak his mind. So, it seems Fauci’s point about feeling liberated was really just a reference to his newfound ability to criticize Trump without consequence. He’s already putting it to good use: In a matter of days, he accused the former president of launching a “chilling” pressure campaign against him, repeating “complete garbage” about the coronavirus, and trying to throw him “in the middle of a very contentious political battle,” all of which he found “really very infuriating.”
Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is certainly not above criticism. But if Fauci feels the need to settle the score, he should wait to do it in his memoir rather than at a precarious stage of the pandemic. Now is the time to rally everyone with the common goal of universal vaccination and defeat of the coronavirus. Fauci will not be able to do that if he keeps throwing chum to a press corps still hungry for anti-Trump headlines.
Whether he realizes it or not, Fauci is turning himself into a partisan figure. This is perhaps his right, but it is counterproductive to his mission. Fauci himself has admitted that one of the biggest obstacles standing in between the United States and herd immunity will be widespread hesitancy to get vaccinated. He spoke about his efforts at outreach to minority and other communities that may be reluctant to take COVID-19 shots. So, his completely gratuitous bashing of a politician whom tens of millions still support is not a good way to earn their trust. Fauci needs to consider that his big mouth is actually putting public health at risk at precisely the worst moment.
The U.S. already faces a long road to recovery. By focusing on Trump, Fauci may be making that road longer.
