Dr. Fauci Looks 10 Years Younger Since Wednesday

There is no one more excited about the new administration than Dr. Anthony Fauci, and these clips all prove it

There’s a new administration running the country, and with that, it feels kind of like a whole new era. The Trump administration was a dumpster fire of science-denying, pandemic-mishandling, climate-change-accelerating, turning-a-blind-eye-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-Americans-dying incompetence, and we still kind of can’t believe it’s over. But none of us, and I do mean none of us, woke up feeling as sunny and hopeful as Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci is the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, which has made him a bit of a spokesperson for our national COVID-19 response — or lack thereof. He’s been in charge of trying to disseminate science and evidence-based facts alongside Trump, who lied and lied and lied about the virus, its danger, possible treatments, and anything else he could think of to lie about.

You can’t really blame Dr. Fauci for feeling good right now. And you know something? It shows.

The pale, exhausted Dr. Fauci of the Trump administration is gone. Now, we get this Dr. Fauci: A smiling, happy, trustworthy leader who will tell it to us straight as we finally put together a coordinated national plan that will get us out of this pandemic.

Fauci was a part of one of the first press briefings of the Biden era, where he was relaxed, and happy, and spoke freely and openly about the changes that had already taken place.

For one thing, he said that the new administration has a very different policy than the old one: If someone doesn’t know the answer to a question, they’re allowed to say they don’t know, rather than make something up. We shouldn’t be surprised that that was a rule under Trump, but we’re a little bit horrified nonetheless.

“As recently as about 15 minutes ago, when I was with the president, one of the things we’re going to do is to be completely transparent, open, and honest,” Fauci told reporters. “If things go wrong, not point fingers, but to correct them. And to make everything we do be based on science and evidence. I mean, that was literally a conversation I had 15 minutes ago with the president, and he has said that multiple times.”

You can hear the relief and disbelief in Fauci’s voice as he explains that moment, and it’s pretty sobering to think of what this scientific expert must have gone through in the last four years, trying to balance his duty to the American people with pleasing a president who stood only against him. But those days are over, and boy does it show.

Fauci is back, baby, and you love to see it.