(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama, still one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, is set to hit the campaign trail in the final stretch to the midterm elections.
Democrats hope to sway enough voters to avoid losing control of Congress — despite major political headwinds like high inflation.
Here is where Obama is scheduled to appear in the next few weeks:
Atlanta with Abrams, Warnock
Obama will appear in Atlanta on Oct. 28, visiting a state that could decide which party controls the Senate and is also hosting a competitive gubernatorial election.
He will rally for freshman Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is running for a full term of his own after winning a special election last year, and Stacey Abrams, the prominent voting rights activist and former lawmaker again trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brain Kemp after he narrowly beat her in 2018.
Warnock is running neck-and-neck with former football star Herschel Walker, though he has a narrow edge in the most recent surveys, according to FiveThirtyEight, including in those taken since Walker, a staunch abortion opponent, denied a report that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.
Abrams, for her part, is widely viewed as the underdog to Kemp though she is seeking to mobilize voters.
Democrats are hoping to keep their momentum going in the Peach State after a banner year in 2020, when President Joe Biden narrowly won the state and Warnock and Jon Ossoff ended up eking out a pair of Senate wins — the first such victories for Democrats there in decades.
Detroit with Whitmer
Obama will rally in Detroit on Oct. 29, appearing with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats.
Whitmer is running for reelection against conservative commentator Tudor Dixon.
The governor, who has focused her campaign messaging around a blend of pocketbook and social issues, is widely viewed as the favorite and leads Dixon in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. A win there would offer a promising sign for Democrats in a tight presidential swing state.
“The event will focus on the stakes of the race as access to abortion, voting rights and public education are at risk in Michigan,” Obama’s office said in a statement.
Milwaukee with Evers, Barnes
Obama will also rally in Milwaukee on Oct. 29 with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who is up for reelection, and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is running to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson,
State Attorney General Josh Kaul, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Gwen Moore will also attend.
Wisconsin is a crucial state for Democrats this year, with Johnson as one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection.
Barnes has begun narrowly trailing Johnson in voter surveys after facing an avalanche of attack ads painting him as soft on crime, while Evers is locked in a close race with businessman Tim Michels.
Flipping Johnson’s seat would ease Democrats’ path to keeping Senate control, where they hold a bare majority, while the victor in the gubernatorial race could help decide key policies on issues like abortion access and voting rights in a state where Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature.
(NEW YORK) — Some state officials as well as abortion providers are trying to find workarounds to help patients who want to end their pregnancies after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Since the late June ruling, at least 12 states have ended nearly all abortion services, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Some states had trigger laws banning abortion immediately after Roe v. Wade’s reversal. Others had laws written before the court’s decision that could then be enacted.
Penalties for performing abortions in states with bans vary and can include paying a significant fine, loss of a medical license or even a prison sentence.
Meanwhile, organizations and providers have come up with ways they say can help patients access reproductive care without breaking any of the new laws in place.
“What will you do if the work and the health care you provide suddenly becomes illegal?” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News. “Do we try to muster resources and move a clinic to another state, uprooting our lives, the lives of our colleagues and employees? And how would patients get to that new clinic? So where would it be located?”
“All of those questions are incredibly difficult to answer and require a huge amount both of resources and personal determination,” Smith added.
Accessing pills in California
Legal abortions are still occurring in Arizona after a court blocked a century-old law from going into effect.
The 1901 law, which includes language dating back to 1864, provides no exceptions for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities and makes performing abortions punishable by two to five years in prison. The only exception is if the mother’s life is in danger.
Abortions can resume for at least five weeks while the case is considered by an appeals court, but one abortion clinic reportedly has a workaround — involving telemedicine appointments with doctors in California and picking up pills near the California-Arizona border — if abortions are nearly or totally banned in the state.
According to Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How, a reproductive rights organization, the arrangement is completely legal.
“If somebody receives a telehealth consultation from a provider who is legally authorized to practice in the state where [the provider] is and [the patient] actually goes into that state to receive the medications, essentially they received an abortion in that state where the telemedicine appointment happened,” she told ABC News.
She said legal questions only arise if somebody living in a state with abortion restrictions has medication abortion pills mailed to them.
“If people are in an abortion-hostile state and they’re receiving medications sent to them from other states or from outside of the country, it’s not technically legal for them to do — to obtain that medication,” Diaz-Tello said.
Anti-abortion groups have slammed the arrangement and claimed it is dangerous.
“The abortion industry’s lack of concern for women is on full display in these schemes to circumvent safety regulations in order to make a buck,” Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative lobbying group, said in a statement to ABC News.
Mobile abortion clinic
A local chapter of Planned Parenthood announced this month it is opening the organization’s first mobile abortion clinic to accommodate the number of patients who now must travel to access abortion services.
The clinic will operate in southern Illinois, where abortion remains legal, and will travel close to the borders of neighboring states, where abortion access remains restricted or gone altogether, specifically Missouri.
Dr. Colleen McNichols, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri, said they’ve seen a rapid increase in the number of people seeking care outside of the bi-state area, which encompasses Illinois and Missouri.
“So before the decision, outside of our bi-state area represented just about 4% of the patients that we saw, regularly,” she told ABC News. “And now, in the three months since the decision, the proportion of folks we see from outside of that bi-state area is more than 40%. So we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of folks we’re seeing traveling really long distances to access to basic reproductive health care.”
Because of the growing demand, the mobile clinic was born. Inside the 37-foot revamped RV is two fully-functioning exam rooms, a small waiting area and a laboratory.
Diaz-Tello said it is legal for a woman to cross into Missouri to receive an abortion at the mobile clinic in Illinois.
“Essentially what those mobile abortion clinics are doing is making it easier for people to go to another state, that they don’t have to go all the way into the state, they can go to the border of their state and be able to return quickly,” said Diaz-Tello. “This is still lawful for people to leave the state to seek abortion care.”
However, some Missouri lawmakers want to close this loophole. A measure that would make it illegal to “aid or abet” an abortion, even if was performed in another state, was presented — and ultimately blocked — in the Missouri House.
Moving services across state lines
Some clinics have moved their services across state lines to areas where abortion access is largely unimpeded.
One example is the Red River Women’s Clinic, which used to be the sole abortion clinic in North Dakota and was in Fargo.
Although a judge blocked the state’s trigger law banning abortions from going into effect in August while a lawsuit plays out, Red River Women’s Clinic said it would now be performing abortions just over the border in neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota.
The right to an abortion is recognized in Minnesota’s state constitution and, in July 2022, several restrictions were permanently blocked, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Tammi Kromenaker, director of the clinic, told ABC News that she’s glad the clinic can still operate but it’s “bittersweet.”
“We fought long and hard in North Dakota and, in fact, are still engaged in legal battles and so we don’t take leaving there lightly,” she said. “And it’s still very raw and it’s bittersweet. So, even though we’re very fortunate that we found a place so close and so convenient to maintain access for our patients, it’s hard to leave a place that you fought so long and so hard for..”
(NEW YORK) — One of the winning tickets to Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot was sold in Fort Myers, Florida, weeks after Hurricane Ian devastated the area.
Ticket holders in California and Florida matched all six numbers on Friday night, winning $494 million on Friday, lottery officials said in a news release.
Friday’s jackpot was the 11th largest in the game’s history, according to the game’s officials.
The winning ticket in Fort Myers comes at a critical time for the Florida city.
Last month, Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s west coast as a Category 4 hurricane, destroying homes and businesses with winds that topped 150 mph, particularly in Lee County, Florida, where Fort Myers is located.
At least 127 people in the state have died due to Hurricane Ian, local officials said.
As for the winning ticket, it’s the first Mega Millions jackpot win since two people won the $1.337 billion prize in Illinois on July 29, officials said.
The winning numbers were 9, 22, 26, 41 and 44, plus the gold Mega Ball 19.
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 17, 5:55 AM EDT
Zaporizhzhia plant disconnected from power grid
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling on Monday, Energoatom said.
The plant’s diesel generators were started after a “short-term voltage drop,” the energy company said.
“We once again appeal to the international community to urgently take measures for the demilitarization of the ZNPP as soon as possible,” Energoatom said in a statement.
Oct 17, 3:50 AM EDT
Two trapped under rubble after drone strikes, Kyiv mayor says
Eighteen people were rescued and two were trapped under rubble after a Russian drone struck central Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens started blaring in the capital at about 6:30 a.m. on Monday, accompanied by at least three explosions from drone strikes.
A non-residential building in the Shevchenkinskyi district of the city was on fire, Klitschko said. At least one residential building had also been struck, Kira Rudik, a member of Ukrainian Parliament, said on Twitter.
“Critical infrastructure severely damaged. Ruined buildings,” Rudik said. “We have no time for statements about support. We need air defense asap.”
Oct 17, 3:38 AM EDT
Ukraine shoots down 37 drones, military says
Ukrainian forces shot down 37 Russian drones and three cruise missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
Oct 17, 1:39 AM EDT
Drones strike Kyiv, mayor says
Multiple blasts struck Kyiv on Monday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Air raid sirens were sounding in the capital, he said. He asked people to shelter in place.
Klitschko shared a photo on Twitter of what he said was the wreckage of a Kamikaze drone.
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — The teenager suspected in the fatal shootings of five people in Raleigh, North Carolina, is still in “grave” condition, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation into the mass shooting told ABC News.
The 15-year-old was taken into custody with life-threatening injuries following a standoff with police last Thursday after the shootings occurred, according to a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by ABC News. It’s not clear whether the suspect’s injuries were self-inflicted, the memo said.
The teen, who has not been named, is still in the hospital in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, the official said on Sunday. While the investigation into whether the suspect’s injuries are the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, detectives believe responding police fired at the suspect, so officer-involved-shooting protocols are being followed, the official said.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson will file a five-day report to the Raleigh city manager on Oct. 20, which will include a detailed outline of the events during the shooting, Julia Milstead, public information officer for the city of Raleigh, told ABC News.
The report will include details on the suspect’s injuries and the type of weapon that was used in the shooting, Milstead said.
Five people were killed and two injured during the shooting, which took place in the vicinity of the Neuse River Greenway Trail in Raleigh, authorities said.
The crime scene spans over 2 miles, Patterson said. Among the victims were an off-duty police officer and a relative of the suspect, the official said. A police dog was also injured but is expected to recover, the official said.
The suspect first shot two people in the streets of the neighborhood before fleeing toward the nature trail, where he opened fire, killing three more people and wounding two others, Patterson told reporters during a news conference on Thursday.
Detectives are continuing their effort to piece together a possible motive for the shooting, the official told ABC News. A search of his juvenile records has not revealed a criminal history, the official added.
Officers searched the suspect’s home on Friday and so far have not found any social media footprint for the suspect, the official said, adding that investigators are going through handwritten material.
ABC News’ Meredith Ferrell, Elwyn Lopez, Josh Margolin, Emily Shapiro and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(CHICAGO) — A 13-year-old boy was among five people killed in unrelated shootings across Chicago over the weekend, which also left 20 others injured, according to police.
The violent weekend in the nation’s third largest city erupted despite a 20% drop in shootings in Chicago through the end of summer, according to Chicago police crime statistics. Homicides have also plummeted 16% from last year, according to the statistics.
Despite recent efforts by police to curb shootings, at least 25 people were shot in Chicago between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, according to a review of weekend crime incidents by ABC News.
Last weekend, 30 people were shot, two fatally, in gun violence across the Chicago, police said.
Boy sitting on park bench killed
The youngest victim shot to death over the weekend was identified as 13-year-old Lavel Winslow, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The boy was fatally shot while attending a friend’s birthday party at Lerner Park on the city’s North Side.
The shooting unfolded around 10 p.m. Friday, according to police.
“Witnesses heard loud pops followed by multiple people fleeing the area on foot,” police said in an incident report.
Winslow was found sitting on a park bench with a bullet wound to the head, according to police. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Chicago, where he was pronounced dead.
The shooter fled the scene on foot, police said. No arrests were announced as of Sunday afternoon.
The victim was an eighth-grader at West Ridge Elementary School in Chicago and had just been moved into an advanced math class, his mother told the Chicago Tribune.
“I’m just going to miss him coming in and talking to me, laying his head on my shoulder,” Vanessa Winslow said of her son, describing him as “extremely smart” and a “social, kind, just a lovable young man.”
At least 283 juveniles have been shot, 33 fatally, in Chicago this year, according to crime data analyzed by ABC station WLS-TV in Chicago.
Teenager found dead outside home
A 17-year-old boy was shot to death in the Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago South Side, according to police.
The teenager, whose name has not been released, was found shot multiple times just after midnight Saturday, police said. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A resident of the area found the teenager unresponsive after hearing multiple gunshots outside his home, police said.
Detectives were working Sunday to identify the killer. No arrests were announced.
Hotel lounge killing
A fight that erupted inside a hotel lounge in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood of Chicago ended in a shooting that left a 35-year-old man dead and his killer on the run, according to police.
The shooting occurred around 1:21 a.m. Sunday. Police said the victim was shot in the chest during a physical altercation.
The victim, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead at Masonic Medical Center in Chicago.
The suspected gunman fled the hotel lounge and police were working Sunday to identify him. No arrests were announced.
Fatally shot in the back
Two people were shot, one fatally, when gunfire broke out in a third-floor hallway of a building on Chicago’s South Side, police said. The shooting unfolded around 11 p.m. Saturday, police said.
A 27-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, died at the scene from a gunshot wound to the back, authorities said. A 25-year-old woman was shot in the left leg during the incident, according to police.
No arrests have been made.
Fatal home invasion
A 22-year-old man was shot to death when a gunman forced his way into the victim’s apartment and shot him multiple times, according to police.
The shooting occurred just after 5 p.m. on Saturday at a home in the North Lawndale section of Chicago’s West Side.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene from gunshot wounds to his back and chest, according to police.
No arrests were announced.
60-year-old man shot on a train
Among 20 people wounded in shootings over the weekend was a 60-year-old man, who was shot multiple times while riding on a Red Line train early Saturday, according to police.
The victim, whose name was not released, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, authorities said.
The suspected gunman remained at large on Sunday. The suspect fled the train when it stopped at the 87th Street Station in the Chatham neighborhood of the city’s South Side.
The shooting unfolded just after 6 a.m. when the victim and the suspect got into an argument, according to police.
Among the other non-fatal shootings over the weekend, a 62-year-old man police alleged was attacking a woman with a knife was shot by a woman who intervened.
The incident occurred just after 8 p.m. on Friday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood in the northwest area of the city. Police said a 33-year-old woman was attempting to enter a residential building when she was attacked by the knife-wielding assailant, who stabbed her in the hand and leg, police said.
An armed 54-year-old woman interrupted the attack and shot the assailant in the chest, police said. The alleged perpetrator was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.
The woman who shot the suspect was taken to a police station for questioning. No charges were announced and the incident remains under investigation.
(WASHINGTON) — With year-over-year inflation barely easing in the latest Consumer Price Index report despite sharp increases in interest rates meant to cool the economy, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that a recession is “possible but not inevitable.”
Buttigieg was asked in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” if the threat of recession worried him.
“Look, it’s possible but not inevitable. … A part of why we do see a lot of pressure on prices is that while the demand has come back, Americans have more income because Americans have jobs in this almost historically low level of unemployment,” Buttigieg told anchor George Stephanopoulos, adding that it’s “been hard for the supply side to keep up.”
“That’s a big part of what we’re working on — on the infrastructure side — dealing with some of the bottlenecks we have, dealing with some of the constraints that we have in transportation infrastructure that’s needed to be upgraded for decades,” Buttigieg said, referring to a supply-chain crunch exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Joe Biden said last week that he believed an economic downturn was unlikely but conceded there could be a “very slight recession.” His comments came after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase CEO, warned a recession is likely within six to nine months because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and historically high inflation and the rising interest rates to combat those prices.
The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times so far this year and is expected to again next month.
Stephanopoulos pressed Buttigieg on what more Biden could do about rising prices after the president said he would soon be announcing more steps to tackle inflation and, particularly, the cost of gas.
Buttigieg emphasized that he didn’t want to “get ahead of the president,” but he highlighted how Biden had ordered the release of fuel from the country’s strategic petroleum reserve and waived a requirement on ethanol blending for gas stations.
“This is part of a bigger focus that the president has sustained throughout this year on fighting inflation and creating more of that breathing room for American families,” Buttigieg said.
While gas prices have fallen sharply from a summer high — now averaging about $3.90, down from $5.02 in mid-June — they are 20 cents higher than they were just a month ago, according to AAA. Buttigieg laid some of the blame with oil companies, who have defended themselves from criticism of excessive profits.
The economic headwinds could cost Democrats their slim congressional majorities this November.
Stephanopoulos asked Buttigieg how the party should address high inflation with just 23 days until the midterm elections. Polls show it is a major factor in Biden’s low approval rating, with voters giving Republicans the advantage on handling the economy — and Republicans have, in turn, made the state of the economy central to their campaign messaging.
“Good policy is good politics. And we have been doing the right thing for the American people with proposals and achievements, legislatively, that are popular because they make sense,” Buttigieg said. He pointed to a bipartisan infrastructure funding bill that was signed in 2021, which has allowed for improvements to bridges, roads and airports across the country, as well as the recently enacted Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA), which contains provisions aimed at lowering health care costs.
Buttigieg suggested that the November elections were important for making sure those policies continue: “It’s why we can’t turn back on the progress that’s been made, especially because we know there’s still a long way to go.”
He cited some conservative objections to allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, which was a major part of the IRA. GOP lawmakers have said the negotiation power is a “price control” that will hamstring pharmaceutical development.
“It’s the wrong time to do anything that would increase costs for health care or anything else for the American people,” Buttigieg said.
Stephanopoulos asked whether Biden should spend more time highlighting the White House’s other 2021 successes, like the direct COVID relief payments and a temporary expansion of the child tax credit which expired at the end of last year.
Buttigieg said “we are proud of those accomplishments,” and then noted what he believed were others, such as a funding bill for domestic manufacturing, a veterans’ health care bill and Biden’s initial COVID-19 relief bill when the economy “was at risk of going into free-fall.”
“In some ways having achieved so much legislatively makes it hard to talk about all at once because there are just so many,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot would need to negotiate with former President Donald Trump if he were to offer to testify live in response to the panel’s subpoena, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Sunday.
“I think that’s going to be a negotiation,” Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the committee, told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I’ll only address that when we know for sure whether or not the president has tried to push to come in and talk to us live.”
“He’s made it clear he has nothing to hide, [that’s] what he said. So he should come in on the day we asked him to come in. If he pushes off beyond that, we’ll figure out what to do next,” Kinzinger said.
He dodged Stephanopoulos’ question on whether Trump should be held in criminal contempt if he does not comply with the subpoena.
“Do you believe that the Justice Department, if the president refuses, should hold him in criminal contempt?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“That’s a bridge we cross if we have to get there,” Kinzinger said, adding, “We’re at a bit of a time limit here. And as we’re wrapping up the investigation, we’re also pursuing new leads and facts.”
Trump has not yet said if he will comply with the committee subpoena but did send the panel a 14-page screed reiterating his election fraud conspiracies.
“We made a decision in front of the American people, not behind closed doors, to begin the process of subpoenaing the former president,” Kinzinger said on “This Week.” “He’s required by law to come in. And he can ramble and push back all he wants.”
Kinzinger’s comments come after the House panel on Thursday voted to subpoena Trump — a rare but not unheard of demand of a former president — as the committee enters the final months of its investigation into the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Committee members have cast the subpoena as an effort to hear directly from Trump on what he did and did not do and what he did and did not know regarding Jan. 6.
Previous committee hearings have detailed how, according to Trump’s former aides and others, he knew there was no legal basis for his scheme to stay in power and was aware his claims of election fraud in 2020 were baseless but continued to push his supporters to march to the Capitol — even as he knew some of them were armed.
Trump has said the investigation is politically motivated and that he did nothing wrong.
The committee, which is not expected to continue into the next Congress, is in the process of formulating its final report, which will include legislative recommendations on how to stop another insurrection and ensure elections are certified at the state and federal levels.
On Sunday, Stephanopoulos pressed Kinzinger on if the committee will be making a criminal referral, which would be a notable recommendation but is not required to open a probe of Trump’s conduct. Kinzinger noted that the government is already investigating.
“It’s not a mandate, but I think … we’re certainly going to address that issue, and we’ll have more to come on that when we make that decision,” Kinzinger said.
“The Justice Department appears to be pursuing this pretty hard,” he said.
Asked about the “threat” from how widespread election denial has become in the Republican Party, despite the lack of evidence, Kinzinger, who is stepping down as a Republican lawmaker in January, said, “I don’t think this is just going to go away organically.”
The public had power to push back as well, he said: “This is going to take the American people really standing up and making the decision that truth matters.”
(WASHINGTON) — After 54 years at the National Institutes of Health and 38 years as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci will be stepping down from public service at the end of the year.
“I have been driving onto that campus every single day, every single weekend for the last 54 years,” Fauci told ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an interview that aired Sunday. “So I don’t even want to think about what it’s going to be like when I drive off the campus for the last time … That idea just gives me chills just thinking about that.”
In an intimate interview at his home, Fauci sat down with ABC News to talk about his tenure in public service, the COVID-19 pandemic during which he became perhaps the country’s most famous doctor and the controversies that have consumed the last two and a half years — and sometimes ensnared him.
Fauci has lived in the same home since 1977. Pictures hang next to the banister stairwell, dozens of framed photos sit atop a bookshelf and the floor is scuffed from years of use, the carpet worn down too. The mismatched red and brown chairs in the living room are cozy; on one sits an overstuffed pillow that has Fauci’s face on one side and, on the other, a quote reading “‘It is what it is.’ – Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.”
“You became an icon,” Karl told him. “It was kind of wild to see. There were Fauci bobbleheads. People had Fauci shirts that said ‘In Fauci We Trust.’ You became somebody the whole country was turning to. What was that like?”
“I was pretty well known among my peers in science, but certainly not to the extent it is now,” Fauci answered. “You know, I actually think both extremes, Jon, are aberrations of a reflection of the divisiveness in our country.”
As much as Fauci — who served under presidents of both parties as a nonpartisan health official — was respected by many amid the pandemic, he was lambasted and even despised by others. Conservatives on Capitol Hill have criticized his recommendations on COIVD, called for investigations into him, he’s received death threats and at a rally just days before the 2020 election, supporters of former President Donald Trump chanted “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”
“When did it all get so political?” Karl asked.
“It got political very, very quickly,” Fauci responded. “Because we had the misfortune of an outbreak, and a double misfortune of an outbreak in a divided society, and the triple misfortune of a divided society in an election year. I mean, you couldn’t get more — getting the cards stacked against you, than right there. It was a triple whammy.”
Fauci said he has remained dedicated to his work, despite the threats of violence against him and his family.
“I look upon the country, in many respects, as my patient,” he went on to say. “And when you — if you’re a really good physician, you are concerned and worry about every element of your patient.”
“Including how your patient is going to react to something you said?” Karl asked.
“Exactly,” Fauci responded. “Exactly. And even if the patient is somebody who’s not the most attractive person in the world in the sense of personality, you still got to treat them the way you would treat anybody else. We learned that in medical school.”
While Fauci said he hasn’t communicated with Trump since Trump left office, he did praise the former administration on Operation Warp Speed, the program that developed the COVID-19 vaccines in record time.
“Just as he takes the blame for things in the administration, he should take the credit for things in the administration,” Fauci said. “That was a positive thing, Operation Warp Speed. And they should take credit for that.”
COVID-19 has killed more than a million Americans, a death toll higher than any war in which the U.S. has fought. And Fauci was one of the faces of the government’s response. For a time, he appeared nearly constantly at White House briefings and in the media to share the government’s latest, sometimes shifting, pandemic guidance.
“There were a lot of dark days, obviously a lot of deaths,” Karl said. “Was there a day that sticks out to you or a time period that sticks out to you as the darkest?”
“It wasn’t a day,” Fauci answered. “It was a period. I’ve trained a lot of Italian scientists in my lab in the arena of infectious diseases, many of whom went back to Italy and were in the epicenter of the northern Italy disaster there.”
“And when I got on the phone and heard them describe what was going on in the ward, where they were having people packed up in the hallways — who they had to decide who to give a ventilator to, or who to take care of,” Fauci later added. “I knew these people. So I knew what effect it would have on them. And then I said, ‘Whoa, we got a real problem here. We have a real, real problem.'”
For months, cities were locked down. Schools in many areas were closed even longer.
“Obviously, these are local decisions. But was it a mistake in so many states, in so many localities, to see schools closed as long as they were?” Karl asked.
“I think in some — I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’ Jon, because if I do, it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” Fauci said. “And I don’t want to do that because that’s just happened too many times over the last years with me.”
“Did we pay too high a price?” Karl pressed.
“Yeah, I would say that what we should realize, and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that,” Fauci answered.
“That’s the reason why I continually would say on any media appearances I’ve had: We’ve got to do everything we can to keep the schools open,” Fauci said. “The most important thing is to protect the children.”
As the evidence on how the virus changed, the medical advice changed, too. At the very beginning of the pandemic, Fauci told the public that there was no need to wear masks. But that guideline was soon reversed.
“If you are true to the data and the evidence, if something is evolving, means it isn’t the same as it was before and therefore the data are going to allow you to upgrade and update — whether it’s a recommendation, whether it’s a guideline, whether it’s the communication to the public,” Fauci explained.
“Would you take back what you said about masks?” Karl later asked.
“Yeah,” Fauci answered. “I mean, sure, if I had to do it over again. Of course. Again, if I tell you why we did it, it would be interpreted as making an excuse, and I don’t want to go there because that creates nothing but backlash. If I had to do it over again, I would have analyzed it a little bit better.”
Fauci has been the national leading expert on infectious diseases longer than many Americans have been alive. And for 38 years, he hasn’t even changed desks, telling Karl with a laugh that he “didn’t want to ruin taxpayers’ money.”
But as he reaches the final months of his tenure as a public servant, he reflected on how he wants to be remembered.
“I want to be remembered as someone who gave everything they had for the public health of the American public and indirectly for the rest of the world, because we’re such a leader in science and public health,” Fauci said. “I mean, I just want people to know that I gave it everything I had and didn’t leave anything on the field. I was all there.”
(HARRISONBURG, Va.) — At least eight people were injured early Sunday near the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, when gunshots were fired into a crowd gathered outside an off-campus apartment complex, police said.
The gunfire broke out in a neighborhood southwest of the university, police said.
No arrests were announced as investigators were working to identify a suspect or suspects in the shooting, according to the Harrisonburg Police Department.
All of the victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, according to police. Five of the victims were taken to nearby Sentara RMH Medical Center and three others were treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center, authorities said.
The victims ranged in age from 18 to 27. It was not immediately clear if any students from James Madison University were among those injured.
“The incident occurred at 2:20 a.m., when an unknown individual or individuals fired multiple times into a crowd at an outdoor gathering,” Harrisonburg police said in a statement.
No suspects were at the scene when officers arrived and began administering aid to those injured, police said.
While the circumstances of the shooting remain under investigation, police officials said it appeared to be an isolated incident and said, “there is not believed to be any threat to the greater community at this time.”
Police said anyone with information about the shooting can call the agency’s tip line at (540) 574-5050.
