Fauci says he’s worried about country’s future because of disinformation

Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said he is worried about the future of the U.S. due to what he described as the “normalization of untruths.”

While appearing at The Hill’s Future of Health Care Summit on Thursday, Fauci was asked if he was worried about the country as it heads into the 2024 election season. As The Hill’s Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack noted, Fauci has already made appearances in campaigns so far, albeit not from his own participation.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has used Fauci’s likeness through artificial intelligence (AI) in campaign ads to generate photos depicting him hugging former President Trump, which the former health official humorously said was “wonderful.”

“I worry about the country a lot because what we’re seeing — and I think anybody who just takes a deep breath and looks at what’s going on — that we are in an arena, an era, of what I call the normalization of untruths,” Fauci said.

“There are so many misrepresentations and distortions of reality and conspiracy theory, that it almost becomes normalized,” he continued. “We should not accept that as the new normal because when facts are no longer accepted as facts, when distortions occur and when reality is distorted, that will undermine the foundations of the social order and of our democracy. And history has shown us that.”

During the early parts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci often found himself speaking at odds with then-President Trump in regards to guidance on mitigating the virus.

Among some of the unsubstantiated suggestions Trump made early on was to ingest or inject disinfectants. Fauci would later say he worried Trump’s remarks would lead people to do “dangerous and foolish things.”

Shortly before leaving government work at the end of 2022, Fauci said he felt he had to publicly disagree with Trump, despite his respect for the Oval Office, so as not to be “complicit” with spreading misinformation.

During his appearance Thursday at the Future of Health Care Summit, Fauci also touched on his feelings about his own future. When he announced his departure from government work, Fauci stressed that he did not plan on retiring and would continue to work in some capacity.

“One of the most important that I feel I’d like to do is to serve as an inspiration or a model for younger people who want to get involved in science and public service or those who are already involved, to give them an idea of the kinds of things that can be accomplished,” Fauci said Thursday, alluding to possible work through writing, lecturing, consulting or getting involved in an academic setting.