Trump is furiously watching Fauci give interviews about how relieved he is to be working for Biden, report says
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- Since Biden became president, Dr. Fauci has spoken publicly about his relief that Trump is out.
- Sources told The Daily Beast that Trump has been hate-watching Fauci's TV interviews.
- One source said Trump feels "people are working to downgrade his legacy out of hatred."
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Former President Donald Trump has been obsessively and furiously watching Dr. Anthony Fauci's TV interviews in the days since President Joe Biden took office, The Daily Beast reported, citing sources.
Fauci has been transparent in his relief to be working under a new administration, saying at a White House press briefing on Thursday that it was "a somewhat liberating feeling."
While Fauci wasn't afraid of contradicting Trump's misinformation about the COVID-19, he stopped short of directly criticizing Trump when he was president or talking about the politics of the coronavirus task force.
But it seems the filter has come off now that Biden's boss.
Fauci told CNN in a Friday interview that Trump "very likely" cost American lives by spreading lies about the pandemic. He also told MSNBC that he had tried to come on Rachel Maddow's show for "months" but was blocked by the Trump administration.
He also told The New York Times in a Sunday interview that the former president and top White House advisors would sometimes call him after an interview asking why he didn't give a more "positive" outlook on the pandemic or why he contradicted Trump's claims.
The Daily Beast, citing two sources, reported that Trump has been closely watching Fauci's media tour from his new home at Mar-a-Lago, whining about how "incompetent" Fauci was and how he should have fired the infectious-disease expert when he had the chance.
(Trump, in fact, did not have the power to directly fire Fauci because he is a civil-service employee, not a political appointee.)
Trump is also angry that he can't tweet about Fauci because his Twitter account remains permanently suspended in the wake of the Capitol riot, The Daily Beast reported.
"He very much feels that a lot of people are working to downgrade his legacy out of hatred for him," one source told The Daily Beast.
Trump and Fauci often clashed over how to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak and the government's messaging.
Trump pushed for schools and businesses to reopen, while Fauci believed more restrictions were needed.
Trump instituted a hands-off approach to the virus, leaving how to deal with it mostly to the states. Biden, on the other hand, is trying to find more ways the federal government can intervene to curb the spread of the virus, from requiring masks on mass transit to ramping up vaccine disbursement.
Biden has his work cut out for him with US infections topping 25 million over the weekend, and more than 400,000 deaths recorded.
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