Fauci tells MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow he was ‘blocked’ from going on her show, says Trump administration ‘rejected’ science

Dr. Fauci is on fire.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert unleashed on the Trump administration Friday, telling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow he was “blocked” from going on her show and was repeatedly “pressured” to do things that were “not compatible with the science.”

“I’ve been wanting to come on your show for months and months,” Anthony Fauci said. “You’ve been asking me to come on your show for months and months and it just got blocked. Let’s call it what it is. It just got blocked because they didn’t like the way you handle things and they didn’t want me on.”

The Brooklyn-born doctor and longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases even described an exchange he had with an unnamed official after being invited to go on Maddow’s prime-time program.

“Why would you want to go on Rachel Maddow’s show? Well, because I like her and she’s really good,” Fauci recalled.

The stunning revelation came a day after Fauci said it’s “liberating” to work for President Joe Biden, who has named him chief coronavirus adviser and does not seem to reject science the way former President Donald Trump and his aides did. One of the issues Fauci cited Thursday was Trump’s evidence-free campaign to promote hydroxychloroquine as a miracle COVID-19 drug.

“I don’t take any great pleasure in criticizing presidential leadership or the people around the president, but we had a situation where science was distorted and/or rejected,” Fauci told Maddow during Friday’s interview.

“And a lot of pressure was put on individuals and organizations to do things that were not directly to what their best opinion would be, vis-a-vis, the science,” he said. “I had pressure put on me, but I resisted it.”

Fauci, who has served under seven presidents over nearly four decades of public service, said he’s confident the new administration will rely on evidence and won’t try to muzzle him or other health experts.

“I don’t think you’re going to see that now,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of transparency. You might not see everybody as often as you want, but you’re not going to see deliberate holding back of good people when the press asks for them.”

Maddow, a fierce critic of the Trump administration, urged Biden’s White House to honor its commitment to “let the science speak” and not block Fauci or others from going on right-wing propaganda shows on Fox News or other cable channels.

“I hope that his transparency extends to letting the nation’s scientists go make their case particularly to people who’ve been misinforming and telling the people of this country misinformation or politically motivated misinformation,” she said. “The scientists have to lead.”