“I asked Fauci to stay”

Published on: 04/12/2020 7:17 AM

“Wear the mask for a hundred days, not forever. A hundred days. And I think we will see a significant reduction” in coronavirus infections. In his first 100 days in the White House, Joe Biden has announced that he will invite Americans to wear the mask. And, in an interview with CNN, the president-elect confirmed that he had asked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, to “remain in the same role that he had with previous presidents.” “I asked him to be my chief medical consultant and to be part of the Covid team,” Biden said in the interview, his first since voting with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

The president-elect said he will be “happy” to receive the Covid vaccine in public as soon as Fauci announces that it is safe. “People have lost confidence in the efficacy of the vaccine – he told CNN – and what the president and vice president do is important.” Kamala Harris also assured that she will receive the vaccine, after the three former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have taken to the field to support the anti-Covid vaccination campaign.

In the interview, Biden called the proposed $ 900 billion package with a bipartisan initiative to support citizens and businesses amid the coronavirus emergency as “a good start.” According to the president-elect, “there is an immediate need” among other things for “support for people who will be evicted from their homes after Christmas because they can no longer pay their rent” and also “support for mortgage payments.” So the package would be a “good start” but more help is also needed because “people are suffering a lot” and are “very scared”.

Biden made no secret of his concern over rumors about the reprieve that Donald Trump could grant his children and Rudy Giuliani, but also himself, before leaving the White House. Concerned, he told CNN, by the “precedent” that would be created and how “the rest of the world” views the United States. The Justice Department, he added, “will operate independently.” “I will not tell you what to do and what not to do – he said – I will not tell you to proceed with A, B or C. That is not the role. It is not my Department of Justice, it is the Department of Justice of the citizens.” And he concluded by talking about what will be a “completely different approach to the judicial system.”