President Donald Trump has ended the federal security detail for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who advised him on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci is the latest in a string of former Trump aides-turned-critics to see their federal protection canceled despite ongoing threats to their lives.

Speaking to reporters in North Carolina on Friday, Trump said he wouldn’t feel any responsibility if harm befell the former government officials. A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, said that Fauci’s federal security detail was ended on Thursday and that he has since hired private security.

When asked about Fauci and former national security adviser John Bolton, Trump said, “They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security, too.”

  • @notsoshaihulud
    4•2 days ago

    The US population is unhealthy and there is a strong relationship between covid mortality and obesity. So some of the susceptibility cannot be blamed on a single sitting president. That said, his lying in February and March cost a lot of lives up front and that’s where he could have made the strongest impact by showing leadership and preparedness (like getting masks so HCW wouldn’t have to wear the same N95 for a month). He used an Obama-era system to boost the development of the vaccine (moderna at least). And then he bitched about lockdowns, which should have been managed dynamically based on the local healthcare system resources/capacity. But the most telling thing was, the moment he LOST the election, he abandoned the vaccine deployment efforts, so Americans lost 2 months in the rollout.