London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

White House targets US disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci

US infectious disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci is being targeted by the Trump administration as tensions rise between the health expert and the president.

The White House has been increasingly critical of Dr Fauci, and on Sunday, an official shared a list detailing past apparent erroneous comments.

Dr Fauci's changing advice on masks and remarks on Covid-19's severity are among the points from the White House.

The move to undercut him comes as the US continues to see surges in Covid-19.

There are over 3.3 million cases confirmed and more than 135,000 deaths nationwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Dr Fauci has contradicted President Donald Trump's comments on the pandemic a number of times, pushing back on the president's claims that the outbreak is improving and attributing hasty state reopenings to the recent surges.

The White House memo leaked over the weekend had noted "several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr Fauci has been wrong on things".

Though the White House said Dr Fauci and Mr Trump have a "good working relationship" on Monday, Trump adviser Peter Navarro told CBS News: "When you ask me if I listen to Dr Fauci's advice, my answer is only with caution."


What has the White House said?

During a law enforcement event at the White House on Monday, Mr Trump said: "I have a very good relationship with Dr Fauci. I've had for a long time - right from the beginning.

"I find him to be a very nice person. I don't always agree with him."

The president added: "I get along with him very well. I like him personally."

Mr Trump earlier on Monday retweeted comments from a game show host accusing "everyone", including the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), of lying about the coronavirus.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later told reporters Mr Trump still had confidence in the CDC and the tweet was meant to express his displeasure with "some rogue individuals" who leaked planning documents.

Echoing the contents of the anti-Fauci memo earlier, Mr Navarro, an economic adviser to Mr Trump, said Dr Fauci "has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on".

"When I warned in late January in a memo of a possibly deadly pandemic, Fauci was telling the media not to worry," he said.

Mr Navarro said Dr Fauci fought against Mr Trump's "courageous decision" to halt flights from China, initially said the virus was "low-risk" and "flip-flopped on the use of masks".

"Now Fauci is saying that a falling mortality rate doesn't matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening."

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant US health secretary and member of the virus task force, told NBC News on Sunday that while he respects Dr Fauci, he is not always right.

"Dr Fauci is not 100% right and he also doesn't necessarily, he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind. He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view."

As cases and deaths continue to rise in a number of states, Mr Trump has been accused by critics of politicising health issues, including wearing masks.

Mr Trump has also clashed with the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing the body of mismanaging the pandemic when it began and failing to make "greatly needed reforms".

On 7 July, he formally began to pull the US out of the WHO and said funding would be redirected.


What has Fauci said?

Dr Fauci has not weighed in on the White House memo, but he has remarked on his recent lack of television appearances.

"I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things," he told the Financial Times on 10 July. "And that may be one of the reasons why I haven't been on television very much lately."

Dr Fauci also said he has not seen Mr Trump in person since 2 June and has not briefed him for the last two months.

The infectious disease chief has instead been appearing on livestreams and podcasts.

On 9 July, he told FiveThirtyEight: "As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great. I mean, we're just not."

Dr Fauci participated in a livestream with Stanford University Medical School on Monday afternoon, but did not directly address the White House comments.

A New York Times/Siena College poll at the end of June found 67% of US voters trusted Dr Fauci regarding the pandemic, with just 26% expressing trust in Mr Trump.


Did Fauci get things wrong?

In February, Dr Fauci did not advise Americans to change their behaviour due to the pandemic, but he did note the situation was evolving.

During an interview with the Today morning programme on 29 February, Dr Fauci said: "Although the risk is low now, you don't need to change anything you're doing, when you start to see community spread, this could change."

At the time, there were fewer than 100 cases in the US.

In early March, Dr Fauci and other health officials did advise against having the public wear masks. He did, at the time, note that infected individuals should wear one to prevent spreading the disease.

Dr Fauci has defended his earlier comments on masks, citing new research and saying it was due to concerns over scarcity at the time for healthcare providers.

He has since strongly recommended wearing face coverings in public.

A career official, Dr Fauci has advised six presidents - Republican and Democratic - on health issues, including the HIV/AIDs epidemic.

He has been the director of the National Institutes of Health Allergy and Infectious Diseases division since 1984.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
×