Politics

Biden Claimed Trump ‘Muzzled’ Fauci — But Emails Reveal Fauci Said Otherwise

Director Of Nat'l Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases Discusses Global Health Threats

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Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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President Joe Biden claimed that former President Donald Trump “muzzled” experts like White House senior medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci — but Fauci’s personal emails suggest otherwise.

Biden accused Trump of putting a lid on Fauci as early as March of 2020, telling ABC’s “This Week,” “I see no preparedness other than political talking points, putting someone in charge who is not a scientist, and muzzling the scientists.” (RELATED: Our Reckless Media Isn’t Built For Anthony Fauci’s Careful Words)

Biden’s comments followed similar suggestions from then CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Fauci himself even hinted at the idea that he was being hamstrung by the Trump White House during a January 2021 interview with The New York Times’ Donald G. McNeil Jr.

The people around him, his inner circle, were quite upset that I would dare publicly contradict the president. That’s when we started getting into things I felt were unfortunate and somewhat nefarious — namely, allowing Peter Navarro to write an editorial in USA Today saying I’m wrong on most of the things I say. Or to have the White House press office send out a detailed list of things I said that turned out to be not true — all of which were nonsense because they were all true. The very press office that was making decisions as to whether I can go on a TV show or talk to you.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said her agency was prevented from speaking freely, as well.

But Fauci told a very different story a year earlier, both in public and in private.

He forcefully refuted claims that he had been prevented from appearing on certain Sunday shows during a White House press briefing.

“Let me clarify it. I have never been muzzled, ever, and I have been doing this since the administration of Ronald Reagan. I am not being muzzled by this administration. We were set up to go on some shows, and when the vice president took over, we said, ‘Let’s regroup and figure out how we’re going to be communicating.’ So I had to just stand down on a couple of shows and resubmit for clearance. And when I resubmitted for clearance, I got cleared, so I have not been muzzled at all. That was a real misrepresentation of what happened.”

And in private emails, he took the same position:

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