Fauci expects to retire by end of Biden’s current term
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert on infectious diseases, said Monday he plans to retire by the end of President Biden’s term in January 2025.
Fauci, 81, was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984 and has led research on HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, Ebola, Zika and the coronavirus. He has advised seven presidents and is Biden’s chief medical advisor.
In an interview with Politico, Fauci said he hopes to “leave behind an institution where I have picked the best people in the country, if not the world, who will continue my vision.”
Asked Monday on CNN when he plans to retire, Fauci said he does not have a specific date in mind and hasn’t started the process. However, he said he expects to leave government before Biden’s term ends.
“I don’t anticipate I’ll be in this job at the end of the first term of President Biden, which is January 2025,” Fauci said. He added: “Sometime between now and January 2025, you can guarantee I’ll step down.”
Long a prominent figure of the government’s response to infectious disease, Fauci was thrust even more into the spotlight at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic under then-President Trump. As the U.S. response became politicized — with Trump suggesting that the pandemic would “fade away,” promoting unproved treatment methods and vilifying scientists who countered him — Fauci had to get security protection after he and his family were the targets of death threats and harassment.
Fauci testified repeatedly to Congress about the pandemic, and he and some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, engaged in heated exchanges over the origins of the coronavirus.
Fauci said Monday that his decision to leave his role is unrelated to politics.
“It has nothing to do with pressures, nothing to do with all of the other nonsense that you hear about, all the barbs, the slings and the arrows. That has no influence on me,” he said.