Former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a new interview that he has “no doubt” that President Biden is mentally capable of carrying out the duties of the presidency, amid growing concerns among Democrats about the president’s standing as the party’s presumptive nominee.
In an interview with Major Garrett on the CBS News podcast “The Takeout,” Dr. Fauci was asked if he had any concerns about President Biden’s “energy and mental capacity” to serve in office, saying, “I have no doubt about that, talking to him.”
“And I can only speak from my personal interactions with him,” Fauci added in an interview released Wednesday.
Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for nearly 40 years, cautioned against drawing medical conclusions based on a single incident.
Asked by Biden at last week’s debate whether anything “medically surprising” had happened, Fauci replied, “I can’t say. Major, I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that, because when you only see somebody once, you never know what’s going to happen.”
“Did he have a bad cold? Did he get dizzy from taking antihistamines? Or something like that? We don’t know what happened,” Fauci continued. “And I think it’s unfair and inappropriate to try to diagnose something based on a 90-minute clip.”
Fauci, who retired at the end of Biden’s second term, described the president as sharp and curious in their interactions. Asked if Biden’s debate performance was “at all” similar to what he had seen in his interactions with the president, Fauci said, “No, definitely not.”
“I don’t want to comment on what happened that night, but you know, it just seemed like a bad night to me,” Pouch said. “Because the conversation I had with him was exactly what I described in the book, and even after I came out, it was what happened after I described in the book.”
He called Biden “a very probing questioner, a very analytical questioner, a very calm questioner,” and said Biden always asked “very relevant questions” during briefings.
“So I have to say my interaction with him has been very, very positive in every way,” Pouch added.
The interview comes amid questions about whether Biden should remain in the lead after a tough debate last week, with two Democratic lawmakers already calling for Biden to step down and others expressing concerns about the former president’s ability to beat Biden in November.
Biden and his team repeatedly stressed that the president will serve another four years in office, dismissing last week’s debate as a weak performance by the commander in chief.
“He knows how to get things done, not because he talks about it, but because his record proves it. For three and a half years, almost four years, the president’s record has been unprecedented, working for the American people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
