Security detail for former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been nixed by President Donald Trump.
According to CNN, a source close to the situation told the outlet that Fauci’s security detail was pulled late Thursday night, and that he will now have to pay for his own security detail after the National Institutes of Health had been footing the bill.
The source further told CNN that Fauci needed the security detail after he faced threats from the public due to his involvement with the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent vaccine. In his last few hours in office, former President Joe Biden gave a preemptive pardon to Fauci, which has pushed Fauci back into the public eye after he retired from his position in 2022.
During a news conference in North Carolina on Friday, Trump told reporters Fauci doesn’t get security detail indefinitely just because he worked for the government.
“You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for the government. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
When asked whether Trump would feel responsible if anything were to happen to Fauci, Trump answered with a decisive “no.”
The president gave the same answer when asked about security detail being pulled from former national security adviser John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo late Thursday.
Trump pointed out that Fauci, Bolton, and Pompeo had made “a lot of money” during their time in their respective positions, and reiterated all three can afford to pay for private security.
“You know, they all made a lot of money, they can hire their own security too,” Trump told reporters, “All the people you’re talking about, they can go out, I can give them some good numbers of some very good security people. They can hire their own security. They all made a lot of money. Fauci made a lot of money, they all did. So, if they felt that strongly … certainly I wouldn’t take responsibility.”
