President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci most likely won’t be getting matching best-friend tattoos anytime soon, but they also seem to tolerate each other just fine, despite their differences. Trump has been very vocal about their differing opinions on how to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, but he often adds that Fauci is “a nice guy.”
In a radio interview with Southern California radio station KNX 1070, Fauci declined to comment on Trump: “I would prefer not to comment on that and just get on with what we are really trying to do, and what we are trying to do is to protect the health and welfare and safety of the American people predominantly, and ultimately, of the world. We are seeing an uptick in [COVID-19] cases — higher than they’ve ever been. Many, many states that had been doing reasonably well are now showing upticks; that’s what we should be concentrating on,” Fauci said, adding later that he doesn’t want to create a “me against the president” mentality.
“[Addressing the virus is] the only thing I really care about. That other stuff, it’s like in ‘The Godfather’: Nothing personal, strictly business as far as I’m concerned,” Fauci said, referring to the words of Michael Corleone from the 1972 mob classic.
Fauci continued to address the uptick in positive cases and said we can get on top of the virus eventually, but lockdowns are not the answer. “We can turn around these surges; we can’t throw up our hands. I’m not talking about shutting down the country, that’s not what I’m talking about,” he said. “Whenever I talk about public health measures, people sometimes interpret that as my being insensitive to the difficulties.”
Dr. Fauci said he understands the “fatigue of COVID” but was optimistic that a viable vaccine is just around the corner, possibly by year’s end.
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