(CNN) — President Donald Trump usually doesn’t need any invitation to demonize and even push for criminal investigations of people he doesn’t like. But he’s been conspicuously absent from Republicans’ and MAGA’s crusade against Dr. Anthony Fauci.
One possible explanation: All of this is a bit awkward for the president.
Trump not only worked willingly alongside Fauci for months during the Covid pandemic, but also has said some pretty nice things about him. Trump even gave Fauci a presidential commendation on his way out of office in 2021 — after Fauci did many of the supposedly horrible things Republicans now accuse him of.
Republicans have increasingly accused Fauci, who repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in Senate testimony Wednesday, of not just illegal behavior, but even crimes against humanity.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida on Wednesday referred to Fauci as “Dr. ‘Mengele’ Fauci” — referring to the infamous Nazi doctor who performed gruesome experiments on concentration-camp prisoners. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama claimed Fauci “killed or had something to do with killing nine million people,” drawing the Fox Business Network host interviewing him to note that this claim lacked proof.
It’s far from the only claim against Fauci that lacks proof. The central one is that he lied about the US government funding potentially dangerous “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China, which some have suggested might have contributed to the coronavirus outbreak, though it’s never been proven.
Trump would typically be all over these kinds of allegations, if for no other reason than that it really animates his base. But when asked about the situation on Wednesday, Trump was remarkably muted.
During an appearance on Fox News before Fauci pleaded the Fifth, Trump was asked about new disclosures from Fauci’s diaries, which conservative media have pitched as damning.
Trump basically shrugged.
“He was a much bigger player in the Biden administration,” Trump said. “I grew tired of him. He was — you remember that, you know he wanted to close everything down.”
After Fauci pleaded the Fifth and sparked outrage among some Republicans — who called for him to be held in contempt of Congress — Trump downplayed Fauci’s role in decision-making during the pandemic.
“I inherited Fauci,” Trump said at a White House event Wednesday afternoon. Trump added that Fauci “made a lot of mistakes and he wasn’t a big factor for me.”
Trump even shrugged off Fauci pleading the Fifth, simply noting he was probably advised to do so by his lawyers. Contrast that with Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said that “no honest person pleads the Fifth.” (The president himself, of course, has invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in a single deposition.)
And this tracks with how Trump has talked about Fauci for years. While he’s occasionally criticized Fauci’s advice, he’s also praised him as a man and downplayed his significance. He certainly hasn’t joined in the most speculative theories, despite his propensity for conspiracies.
Indeed, before Wednesday, the last time Trump expounded on Fauci at length, according to the Factbase archive of Trump’s public comments, was more than two years ago.
During an appearance on the “All In” podcast, a host asked Trump about Fauci supposedly covering up the government’s role in gain-of-function research.
Trump instead said he canceled a research grant related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology during his first term because it amounted to “paying money to China.”
And when asked twice if Fauci had lied to him about the origins of Covid, Trump punted both times.
When right-wing podcaster Tim Pool asked him the month prior about Elon Musk’s “Prosecute Fauci” post on social media, Trump instead talked about canceling the research grant and downplayed Fauci’s importance in his administration.
During the 2024 presidential primaries, Trump occasionally tried to link Fauci to his opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But otherwise, it wasn’t even a campaign issue for him.
Looking back to late in Trump’s first term and the months after, Trump would occasionally talk about how he liked Fauci personally, even if he didn’t rely on his advice.
“I like Dr. Fauci,” Trump said in July 2021. “I actually get along with him great. But they said, ‘Why didn’t you fire him?’ I said, no, he was good. He’d recommend something, I’d do the opposite, and we always turned out to be right.”
“I get along very well with Anthony,” Trump said in October 2020.
During a May 2021 interview on Candace Owens’s podcast, Trump even seemed to ask for some of the credit Fauci was being given for the Covid vaccine, saying, “They praised Fauci. And yet, Fauci worked for me.”
In between these comments, Trump gave Fauci a presidential commendation. In doing so, the White House credited Fauci and dozens of others “for their exceptional efforts on Operation Warp Speed.”
It all illustrates why the GOP’s sudden Fauci focus might be problematic for Trump.
This was a guy who was front and center for the Trump administration for months during the pandemic. While he and Trump certainly tussled publicly, Trump never seemed inclined to go for a full break. That happens occasionally with Trump when it comes to certain people; it seems like someone is a likely target for his typical demonization campaigns, but he pulls his punches.
And if Fauci indeed helped kill millions of people — a completely unfounded allegation, to be sure — Trump would have played a major role in enabling him. He would even have given him an award after much of that supposed damage was done.
It’s a lot like how the GOP’s anti-vaccine fervor was so tough for Trump, in that he played a major role in creating the Covid vaccine.
Even aside from that, Trump might be skeptical there is all that much to be gained politically from this.
A poll last year showed a majority of Americans still trusted Fauci, after all. And Trump barely mentioned him on the 2024 campaign trail, even as much of the conservative base remained apoplectic over Covid lockdowns.
It’s unclear if the GOP will indeed feature Fauci during the home stretch of the 2026 campaign. At the very least, it could help them inject some enthusiasm into a dejected base.
But to do so, they probably need some help from Trump. And he doesn’t seem overly keen.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.