Fauci on why he’s polarizing: ‘Sometimes the truth becomes inconvenient for some people’

Anthony Fauci on Sunday said he doesn’t think he’s said anything that has contributed to the polarizing views people have of him, blaming his speaking of the “truth” for some people not liking him.

“I can’t think of anything, though I’m sure some people will,” Fauci, a White House adviser to President Biden and the government’s foremost expert on infectious diseases, said in response to a direct question from Fox News host Chris Wallace about why he thinks he’s controversial and whether he thinks he’s done anything to contribute to that.

Fauci said some people likely find the truth he has spoken about COVID-19 and the pandemic “inconvenient” and that it has contributed to some people’s negative views of him.

“Chris, I have stood for always letting science, data and evidence be what we guide ourselves by, and I think people who feel differently, who have conspiracy theories, who deny reality that’s looking them straight in the eye, those are people that don’t particularly care for me,” Fauci said on Fox News Sunday.

“That’s understandable because what I do, and I try very hard, is to be guided by the truth,” the doctor added of his critics. “And sometimes the truth becomes inconvenient for some people, and so they react against me. That is what it is, and there’s not that much I can do about that, Chris.”

Fauci has been criticized throughout the pandemic for his guidance on lockdowns and masking in addition to his remarks on the origin of the coronavirus. 

He frequently battled with former President Trump during the previous administration. 

Fauci echoed a similar sentiment earlier in the pandemic in response to the release of his emails.

Some Republicans argued the emails showed a lack of transparency about the origins of COVID-19 and inconsistent messaging on the effectiveness of masking. 

At the time, Fauci said that “a lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science.”

Despite these criticisms, polling earlier this year from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania showed 68 percent of respondents believed Fauci provided trustworthy advice about the pandemic.