Dr. Fauci weighs in on Biden's debate performance

Dr. Anthony Fouchy is sharing the lessons he has learned over a decades-long career in public health. I sat down with Dr. Fouchy for my podcast, The Takeaway to discuss his new best-selling book On Call, as well as President Biden's

debate

performance

that you write about in the book Dr. Fouchy about Regular Interactions with the President Biden and you talk about the frequent phone calls you received from him your level of curiosity the depth of your understanding of the underlying issues related to covid and everything else your curiosity the question the simple question your interactions with the president in some way does it look like what he saw in the

debate

last Thursday no, I mean, obviously not, you know, I don't want to comment on what happened that night, but you know to me it just seemed like a bad night because my interaction with him was the that I describe in the book and what happened even after what I described in the book after I came out, you know, he's very inquisitive in his questions, very analytical, very calm about things when you tell him things, major, it will be better.

I really know your stuff because he'll ask you very relevant questions and he's very thoughtful about things and he just doesn't jump to conclusions or anything like that, but he's very analytical, so my interactions with him, I have to say, have been very, very, very positive and, uh, in every way, you saw the debate. I did something about it. What you saw alarmed you medically. You know, I can't say. I think it would be inappropriate to say that, major because when you're just looking at someone. just once, you just don't know what could happen if he had a bad cold, you know?

Did he take an antihistamine to do it? You know Gage or whatever, we don't know what happened and I think we do. It would be unfair and inappropriate to try to diagnose something from just a 90-minute clip. Any doubt in his mind. President Biden has the stamina and mental capacity to continue this office in my interactions with him. I have no doubt and I can only speak from my own interactions with him Jerome Adams, who you talk about in your book, served as Surgeon General during the Trump Administration, was on this show, said almost the same things you recently said about vaccines against covid and the efforts, but he also said, look there are things that still bother me and he remembers and many of those who sympathize with former President Trump remember comments that I am going to communicate to you, I am going to read you a headline from the 5th of Politico September 2020 Harris says she wouldn't trust Trump on any vaccine released before the election.

Drome mam said there was a part of an aspect even before the vaccine was available in the heat of the 2020 campaign that was not helpful and that he politicized this whole idea. Do you have any disagreement with that? Yeah, I mean, I think any politicization of that is unfortunate, regardless of where the politicization comes from. I've always felt that way, we have to make sure we stick to the science and make recommendations. Based purely on public health principles and scientific principles and without politicizing any aspect of this, you talk in the book quite frequently about former President Trump's relentless optimism and his desire to make the people around him in this crisis seem like optimistic impediments. or impediment of advantage because it was not realistic.

I mean, that's what happened in the beginning, when we, as part of the team, the Corona virus task force, led by Deb Burgs, went to him and said, "You know we're having a lot of cases, so, what we have?". What you need to do is really have physical distancing and have those 15 days to flatten the curve and extend it to 30 days. He, to his credit, accepted that because he expected it to like the flu and, as I describe in the Greater Memoir, he kept confusing Covid and the flu a bit, desperately wanting it to act like the flu, which means it reaches its point. maximum in the winter for months and then in March and April it will disappear, so he kept saying it will magically disappear and I kept telling him that we have no evidence that this is going to magically disappear, but he was watching the economy and the election cycle and wanted it to go away and when it didn't magically go away he started saying things that weren't scientifically true any advice you had for those in your profession on how to balance mental health, internal emotions and job obligations.

Well, yes, I mean, as I have told many of my friends and colleagues who ask me. I'm not exactly a kid's post for a normal work-life balance, as my family often reminds me, but my advice to people in the medical profession, but in any profession that has a high degree of stress and strain. of yourself because if you wear yourself out, um, you can end up having the paradoxical effect of not doing your job as well as you can.