Dr. Anthony Fauci said he feels “liberated” now that President Joe Biden is in the White House instead of Donald Trump.
During a press conference on Thursday, Fauci was asked to explain what is different so far between Trump’s administration and Biden’s.
Fauci started off saying that “one of the things new with this administration is if you don’t know the answer, don’t guess. Just say you don’t know.”
He went on to clarify that he was not joking about how much better he feels to be working for Biden.
“When you said I was joking about it, I was very serious about it, I wasn’t joking,” Fauci said. “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.”
Dr. Fauci is asked about jokes he made today regarding feeling liberated from the Trump administration.
He responds: “But you said I was joking about it, I was very serious. I wasn’t joking … It is somewhat of a liberating feeling.”pic.twitter.com/Kw30bpwHBD
— The Recount (@therecount) January 21, 2021
Fauci added that he felt “uncomfortable” ever contradicting Trump.
“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.
Under Biden, however, Fauci said he feels free to take a “scientific-based” approach without fear of backlash.
“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,” he said.
Though he was an early fixture at the coronavirus task force briefings last year, Fauci was sidelined after he began questioning Trump publicly.
Despite being recognized by the legacy media as an infallible authority on the virus, Fauci has flip-flopped or been proven wrong on many measures he has recommended to deal with the pandemic, including the issues of mask-wearing, lockdowns, and school closures.