Skip to content Skip to footer

Anthony Fauci Says He Hasn’t Briefed Trump on COVID In Months

Fauci also disagreed with Trump’s recent claim that the virus is “harmless” to 99 percent of those infected.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on June 30, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, revealed this week that he has not briefed President Donald Trump on the spread of the disease in nearly two months.

Fauci made the revelation in an interview with The Financial Times, adding that he has not seen Trump in person at the White House since June 2.

The statement from Fauci is alarming, given that he’s considered the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases and that coronavirus continues to rampantly spread across the United States.

In spite of not speaking directly with the president for quite some time, Fauci said he believes his warnings and opinions on the disease are reaching Trump. Still, during the interview he also expressed misgivings about some of the president’s recent statements, particularly one in which he said that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “harmless.”

“I’m trying to figure out where the president got that number,” Fauci said. “What I think happened is that someone told him that the general mortality is about 1 percent. And he interpreted, therefore, that 99 percent is not a problem, when that’s obviously not the case.”

Earlier this week in a different interview, Fauci described Trump’s focus on waning death numbers from coronavirus as a “false narrative to take comfort in,” adding, “there’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus.” Indeed, even patients showing no signs of symptoms can have neurological or respiratory damage as a result of the disease, studies have found.

Others have disputed Trump’s “99 percent” comment, too. Figures from Johns Hopkins University, for instance, suggest that the fatality rate from COVID-19 of about 4.3 percent, not 1 percent as the president has implied, though those numbers could change as more is learned about the disease. The university estimates around 44,000 individuals around the country are currently hospitalized due to coronavirus.

As of 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, there have been more than 3.1 million diagnosable cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., with 133,420 having died from the disease.

For his own part, during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday, Trump took direct aim at Fauci, suggesting that he has made “a lot of mistakes” during the crisis. He specifically cited the initial call for Americans not to wear masks or facial coverings from Fauci and other experts in his complaints.

“A lot of them said don’t wear a mask, don’t wear a mask. Now they are saying wear a mask. A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of mistakes,” Trump said on the program.

In mid-June, however, Fauci addressed that point, saying that decision was made by experts and the Trump administration in order to ensure healthcare workers had adequate access to supplies in the early weeks of the crisis.

“We wanted to make sure that the people, namely the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected,” had the masks, Fauci explained last month.

Trump himself did not acknowledge on Thursday any of the mistakes he has made during the pandemic’s spread in the U.S., including his refusal to take seriously the disease in February and early March, oftentimes ignoring the advice of health experts that surrounded him in the White House at the time.

Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.

Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.

Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.

As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.

And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.

In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.

We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.

We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $150,000 in one-time donations and to add 1,500 new monthly donors.

Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.

If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!

With gratitude and resolve,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy