Trump told Woodward in March that he was not worried about catching Covid in recently released audio.

The president’s concession that he had limited time for Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, in the early weeks of the pandemic is likely to fuel new scrutiny of his handling of the outbreak that has infected more than 7.3 million people in the United States, including Trump himself.

In a video posted on Twitter From his suite at the Walter Reed National Medical Center, where Trump has stayed since Friday when he was flown to the facility from the White House, the president bragged that being treated for Covid-19 is “the real school.” and that he is “learned a lot” about the virus more than six months after the pandemic.

“This is not ‘let’s read the book’ school, and I get it and I get it, and it’s a very interesting thing,” Trump said in the video posted Sunday. “And I’m going to let you know.”

Trump’s concession in March not to prioritize time for Fauci also underscores the tension that has defined their relationship during the pandemic.

Widely considered a rare source of honesty within the White House coronavirus task force, Fauci has received repeated reprimands from the president and his allies in the conservative media for countering his more optimistic outlook on the outbreak.

“I consider myself more realistic than alarmist,” Fauci told CNN in July.

“This is a deadly thing,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.

And on March 19, the same day that Trump said he didn’t have much time to meet with Fauci, he also told Woodward that he “always wanted to downplay him.”

“I still like to minimize it, because I don’t want to create panic.”