'Liberating feeling' to talk science, evidence with Biden vs. Trump – Fauci

It has been a "liberating feeling" to work with President Joe Biden on scientific issues concerning the COVID-19 pandemic after a year of facing "uncomfortable" situations with his predecessor, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told reporters Jan. 21 from the White House.

Fauci noted he often got into trouble when being truthful with former President Donald Trump about the severity of the spread in the U.S. of COVID-19, which has killed nearly 410,000 Americans.

The longtime U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director said he felt particularly uncomfortable in confronting Trump when he made misleading remarks about hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug the former president frequently promoted as a treatment for COVID-19, even after a number of studies found the medicine did not work in the disease.

Fauci found himself in a particular corner during a March 20, 2020, briefing in which Trump insisted he had a "feeling" hydroxychloroquine would work in COVID-19, despite a lack of evidence.

"I'm a smart guy. I feel good about it," Trump said.

While Fauci told reporters at that March 2020 briefing that data must be collected to show the drug was "truly effective and safe," he said "there really isn't that much of a difference" in what he and Trump were both saying.

"It's just a question of how one feels about it," Fauci said in March 2020. "It's the hope that it will work versus proving that it will work. So I don't see big differences here."

Fauci later backed away from those remarks.

Trump openly pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization to hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 — an action the agency took in late March 2020.

But in June 2020, the FDA revoked that authorization, declaring the drug no longer met the agency's criteria as an emergency treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

In a May 2020 whistleblower complaint, Rick Bright said he was ousted as the director of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority because he had pushed back on Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine and the administration's efforts to make the drug available for COVID-19 outside of the FDA's authorization.

Trump repeatedly criticized Fauci in public when the two disagreed and attacked the scientist on Twitter, threatening at times to fire him.

"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 told reporters Jan. 21.

'Let the science speak'

But that has changed with Biden, he said.

"The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what evidence is, what science is and know that's it — let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling," Fauci told reporters at the White House.

With Biden, "if you don't know the answer, don't guess. Just say you don't know the answer," said Fauci, who is also serving as the chief medical adviser on COVID-19 for the new president.

Biden has instructed his team to be "completely transparent, open and honest" and if things go wrong, do "not point fingers but correct them and to make everything we do based on science and evidence," Fauci said, adding that he had just had a conversation with the president on that matter.

"He has said that multiple times," Fauci said.

Earlier in the day, Biden had made that point when outlining the details of his national COVID-19 strategic plan.

"Above all, our plan is to restore public trust," Biden told reporters. "We will make sure that science and scientists and public health experts will speak directly to you. That's why you're going to be hearing a lot more from Dr. Fauci again, not from the president, but from the real genuine experts and scientists."

Biden said his administration would make sure government scientists "work free from political interference and that they make decisions strictly based on science and healthcare alone — not what the political consequences are."

The president pledged that he and Vice President Kamala Harris and his "entire administration will always be honest and transparent with you about both the good news and the bad."

"We will level with you when we make a mistake," Biden said. "We'll straight up say what happened."

Biden also emphasized that the months ahead for the U.S. will continue to be challenging.

"The honest truth is we're still in a dark winter of this pandemic," he said. "It's going to get worse before it gets better. It's going to take many months to get where we need to be. Progress in our plan will take time to measure as people getting infected today, they don't show up in case counts for weeks and those who perish from this disease die weeks after their exposure. Despite the best intentions, we're going to face setbacks, which we will always explain to you."