Dr. Anthony Fauci emphatically refused the idea of resigning in response to Americans who don’t see him as an effective spokesman for public health.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases gave a lengthy interview to Hugh Hewitt where he tackled Covid misinformation, vaccine hesitancy and the ongoing debates within the government about booster shots. As Fauci defended CDC Director Rochelle Walensky over her recent booster shot recommendations, Hewitt read off a list of controversies that shaped the course of public health throughout the pandemic.

“I’ve lost confidence in the CDC and the FDA,” Hewitt concluded after the recital, “and I actually believe a lot of Americans, a significant part of America, now have lost confidence in you, Dr. Fauci.”

This inevitably led to Hewitt asking: “Is there a point where you will say I do more harm than good because people don’t listen to me anymore and step aside?”

“No, absolutely, unequivocally no,” Fauci answered. He reminded Hewitt that public health policy had to change over time in order to account for new data and current events.

I think the thing that gets lost in the discussion, and that people need to understand, and I do know that some people don’t understand it and don’t accept it even if they, you know, smart people who evaluate it in their own context, is that we have been dealing with an evolving situation. And I just get back to what I’ve said before, and I totally understand and respect your differences, Hugh, that when you have an evolving situation and data are rapidly evolving in something that’s unprecedented and unknown, you have to evolve with it and look at the data as it exists now, and make to the best of your ability a decision, a recommendation, all the kinds of things that go into the evolution. And things have changed. We didn’t know things early on. I always get asked the question, it’s a very common question, what would you have done back then if you knew what you know now. The question answers itself.

Hewitt acknowledged Fauci’s rationale, though he stuck to his point that some parts of the American population have chosen to “actively reject” what Fauci says for a multitude of reasons. He brought this back to his question of whether Fauci should say “Mr. President, I think my time is up as a successful and effective spokesperson?”

“I just completely disagree with that premise, because there are an awful lot of people who do listen, who do the right thing from a public health standpoint,” Fauci replied. “So because there are a lot of people who have ideas about conspiracies and changing minds and flip-flopping, that’s not a reason to step down. Not at all.”

Watch above (start at 8:30), via The Hugh Hewitt Show.

The post Dr. Fauci Says He Won’t Resign When Grilled By Hugh Hewitt: ‘No, Absolutely, Unequivocally No’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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