Former President Donald J. Trump addressed criticism over why he never got rid of his insubordinate top medical advisor during the COVID pandemic, saying that Dr. Anthony Fauci wasn’t a “big player” and that he was “not allowed” to fire the career bureaucrat.
The 2024 Republican Party frontrunner made his remarks about the longtime former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) who became a resistance hero for his constant undercutting of his former boss during a Wednesday interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“First of all, you’re not allowed,” Trump said of the elfin career bureaucrat who headed up his administration’s COVID task force, responding to the host’s question of why he didn’t sack Fauci which he said was the “biggest knock” on the former president’s leadership.
TRUMP: I didn’t fire Fauci because the Establishment said “you’re not allowed to fire him.”
@RonDeSantis will bring a reckoning to the tyrannical bureaucrats and left-wing lockdowners who tried to destroy this country. pic.twitter.com/1VthFQE1K9— DeSantis War Room (@DeSantisWarRoom) September 6, 2023
“No, no, no, Dr. Fauci was there. First of all, he’s civil service, and you’re not allowed to fire him. But forget that because I don’t necessarily go by everything … but Dr. Fauci would tell me things, and I wouldn’t do them in many cases,” the former president said. “But also, he wasn’t a big player in my administration. Dr. Fauci became a big player in the administration of Biden. He’s a very big player in Biden’s administration.”
Despite Trump’s insistence that Fauci wasn’t a “big player” during his tenure, it was the since-retired immunologist’s guidance that set the tone for the trampling of the rights of Americans under the pretense of a national health emergency that he himself declared. Then, instead of reigning in the egomaniacal official after he went rogue, he was allowed to remain in a position that he exploited to achieve media fame while becoming arguably the most powerful bureaucrat in the nation’s history.
The former president also spoke to Hewitt and his listeners over the COVID response of his top GOP rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose handling of the COVID crisis made him into the gold standard of U.S. governors, far better than those like disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Trump has praised since leaving office.
“He said he wouldn’t let anybody come in. He shut down his beaches. He shut down the entire state. He tries … he has a selective memory,” Trump said, referring to a short period immediately after the initial national panic out of DeSantis’ successful policies of ensuring that the most vulnerable Floridians were protected while not strangling the state’s economic activity and protecting the civil rights of his citizens.
“By the way, just so you know, it sounds very negative, third-most in deaths from COVID? Unfortunately, Florida.” Trump added. “Florida was third-worst in deaths … that’s a horrible, that’s a horrible statistic. But that’s a statistic that sort of counts. Ron was the third-worst in terms of actual death from COVID. Ron is No. 3,” he added, leaving out the important context that Florida is also the third most populous state in the country.
DeSantis fired back over Trump’s claims about Fauci during an appearance on “The Rubin Report” in which he noted that the former president had previously told a different story about why he didn’t boot the autocratic government gnome from his position.
MUST WATCH: @RonDeSantis takes a sledgehammer to Trump’s claim that he “wasn’t allowed to” fire Anthony Fauci.
“First of all, it’s important to point out for a long time that was NOT his excuse. His excuse had been that if you fired Fauci, both the Democrats and the media… pic.twitter.com/M1Y4QiQ7mo
— DeSantis War Room (@DeSantisWarRoom) September 6, 2023
“Ron DeSantis is the only candidate in the race who stood up to DC bureaucrats and rejected their sham lockdowns and mandates,” the governor’s national campaign spokesperson Carly Atchison told Fox News Digital. “Voters know only a President DeSantis would ensure America is never locked down again. Every other candidate has either already failed that test or is making a promise they can’t be trusted to keep.”
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