Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday discussed his complicated relationship with former president Donald Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic, detailing his clashes with Trump despite their initial good personal relationship.
“You dedicate a chapter in the book to your dealings with Trump. The chapter's called ‘He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.’ And you describe some angry, ranting, expletive-filled phone calls where he would berate you and flatter you in the same breath,” “The View” co-host Joy Behar said to Fauci during an interview on the show. “You just said you worked with seven other presidents. Did anyone, any one of them, ever speak to you the way he does or did?”
“No, of course not,” Fauci replied. “Not even close. You know, what I meant by 'loves me, loves me not,' early on in the beginning — he is an engaging character, and we had a certain rapport with each other. I was trying to figure out what it was. I think it's that two guys from New York City. He was from Queens, I was from the Bronx, and we kind of had that New York — he calls it ‘swagger’ — with each other. That was fine.
“And all that was really good in the beginning until he wished and hoped that the outbreak would disappear because it clearly was getting in the way of both the economy and then, as a result of that, into the election cycle.”
Fauci described feeling a responsibility to the American public to counter things Trump said that weren’t true.
“I had to contradict him. It was very difficult for me to do that,” Fauci said. “Once I did that, then things got really dicey because I don't think he went away from the fact that we did have a good relationship, but he was really very upset about the fact that I had to get up and say, you know, no, it's not going to disappear like magic, and, no, hydroxychloroquine doesn't work no matter what Laura Ingraham is telling you.”
