2026-07-30T16:50:34.206Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/fauci-trump-fifth-amendment
唐纳德·特朗普总统通常不需要任何邀请，就会妖魔化他不喜欢的人，甚至推动对他们展开刑事调查。但他明显缺席了共和党及“让美国再次伟大”阵营针对安东尼·福奇博士的讨伐运动。
一种可能的解释：这一切对这位总统来说多少有些尴尬。
特朗普不仅在新冠疫情期间心甘情愿地与福奇共事数月，还曾对他发表过不少好评。2021年卸任之际，特朗普甚至为福奇颁发了总统嘉奖令——而福奇当时所做的诸多事情，正是如今共和党口中所谓的“恶劣行径”。
共和党方面越来越多地指责福奇，称其不仅有违法行为，甚至犯下反人类罪。福奇在周三的参议院听证会上多次援引第五修正案。
佛罗里达州联邦众议员安娜·波琳娜·卢娜周三将福奇称为“门格勒医生福奇”，此举影射了臭名昭著的纳粹医生，后者曾在集中营囚犯身上进行骇人实验。阿拉巴马州联邦参议员汤米·图伯维尔声称福奇“杀害或间接参与杀害了900万人”，采访他的福克斯商业频道主持人随即指出，这一说法缺乏证据。
这绝非唯一一项缺乏证据的针对福奇的指控。核心指控是，他就美国政府资助中国武汉可能存在危险的“功能获得性”研究一事撒谎，一些人认为该研究可能与新冠疫情暴发有关，但始终未得到证实。
通常情况下，若这类指控出现，特朗普定会全力跟进，哪怕仅仅是因为这能极大地调动他的支持者。但周三被问及此事时，特朗普的态度却异常温和。
在福奇援引第五修正案之前，特朗普曾做客福克斯新闻，当时有记者问及福奇日记中的新披露内容，保守派媒体将其渲染为致命证据。
特朗普基本上只是耸耸肩。
“他在拜登政府里可是个举足轻重的人物，”特朗普说道，“我早就对他烦透了。他——你还记得吧，你也知道，他恨不得把所有地方都关停。”
福奇援引第五修正案后引发部分共和党人震怒，他们呼吁以藐视国会罪将其逮捕，特朗普却淡化了福奇在疫情期间的决策作用。
“我接手时福奇就已经在岗了，”周三下午在白宫活动中，特朗普说道。他补充称，福奇“犯了很多错误，对我来说他并不是个关键人物”。
特朗普甚至对福奇援引第五修正案一事不以为意，仅表示他大概率是听从了律师的建议。这与乔希·霍利等共和党人的态度形成鲜明对比，密苏里州联邦参议员霍利称“没有一个诚实的人会援引第五修正案”。（当然，特朗普本人在一次证词中援引第五修正案的次数就超过了400次。）
这与特朗普多年来谈及福奇的方式一致。尽管他偶尔会批评福奇的建议，但也会称赞他的为人，并淡化其重要性。尽管特朗普热衷于阴谋论，但他确实没有参与过最天马行空的相关猜测。
事实上，根据特朗普公开言论档案“事实数据库”的记录，周三之前，特朗普上一次详细谈论福奇已是两年多以前的事了。
在做客“全情投入”播客时，主持人问及福奇所谓隐瞒政府在功能获得性研究中角色一事。
特朗普却转而表示，他在第一任期内取消了一项与武汉病毒研究所相关的研究资助，因为这相当于“拿钱给中国”。
当被两次问及福奇是否就新冠起源向他撒谎时，特朗普两次都回避了问题。
就在一个月前，右翼播客主持人蒂姆·普尔问及埃隆·马斯克在社交媒体上发布的“起诉福奇”帖子，特朗普转而谈到了取消研究资助一事，并淡化了福奇在其政府中的重要性。
在2024年总统初选期间，特朗普偶尔试图将福奇与他的对手、佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯联系起来。但除此之外，这甚至都不是他竞选活动中的议题。
回顾特朗普第一任期后期及卸任后的几个月，特朗普偶尔会谈到，即使他并不采纳福奇的建议，他个人还是很喜欢福奇的。
“我喜欢福奇医生，”2021年7月特朗普说道，“实际上我和他相处得非常好。但有人问，‘你为什么不开除他？’我说，不，他很不错。他提出建议，我反其道而行之，结果我们总是对的。”
“我和安东尼相处得非常好，”2020年10月特朗普说道。
2021年5月做客坎迪斯·欧文斯的播客时，特朗普甚至似乎在争取福奇因新冠疫苗获得的赞誉，他说：“人们都在称赞福奇。可实际上，福奇当时是为我工作的。”
在这些言论之间，特朗普为福奇颁发了总统嘉奖令。为此，白宫称赞福奇等数十人“为‘曲速行动’付出了非凡努力”。
这一切都说明了，为何共和党突然将矛头对准福奇，对特朗普来说可能是个麻烦。
这位官员在特朗普政府疫情期间曾长期担任核心角色。尽管他和特朗普确实曾公开争执，但特朗普似乎从未打算彻底决裂。这种情况在特朗普对待某些人时偶尔会出现：某人看似很可能成为他典型的妖魔化运动目标，但他最终却手下留情了。
如果福奇真的如毫无根据的指控所说，导致数百万人死亡——诚然，这完全是无稽之谈——那么特朗普本应在纵容福奇的过程中扮演了主要角色。他甚至还在所谓的“破坏”发生后为其颁奖。
这很像共和党反疫苗狂热给特朗普带来的困境，因为他在新冠疫苗研发中发挥了重要作用。
即便抛开这一点不谈，特朗普可能也怀疑，从政治角度来看，此事并无太多益处。
毕竟，去年的一项民调显示，大多数美国人仍然信任福奇。尽管保守派基础选民仍对新冠封锁措施怒不可遏，但特朗普在2024年竞选活动中几乎从未提及福奇。
目前尚不清楚共和党是否会在2026年竞选的最后阶段将福奇作为议题。至少，这或许能帮助他们提振沮丧的支持者的热情。
但要做到这一点，他们可能需要特朗普的一些帮助。而他似乎并没有太积极的意愿。
Why Trump has shown little interest in taking up the anti-Fauci crusade
2026-07-30T16:50:34.206Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/fauci-trump-fifth-amendment
President Donald Trump usually doesn’t need any invitation to demonize and even push for criminal investigations of people he doesn’t like. But he’s been conspicuously absent from Republicans’ and MAGA’s crusade against Dr. Anthony Fauci.
One possible explanation: All of this is a bit awkward for the president.
Trump not only worked willingly alongside Fauci for months during the Covid pandemic, but also has said some pretty nice things about him. Trump even gave Fauci a presidential commendation on his way out of office in 2021 — after Fauci did many of the supposedly horrible things Republicans now accuse him of.
Republicans have increasingly accused Fauci, who repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in Senate testimony Wednesday, of not just illegal behavior, but even crimes against humanity.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida on Wednesday referred to Fauci as “Dr. ‘Mengele’ Fauci” — referring to the infamous Nazi doctor who performed gruesome experiments on concentration-camp prisoners. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama claimed Fauci “killed or had something to do with killing nine million people,” drawing the Fox Business Network host interviewing him to note that this claim lacked proof.
It’s far from the only claim against Fauci that lacks proof. The central one is that he lied about the US government funding potentially dangerous “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China, which some have suggested might have contributed to the coronavirus outbreak, though it’s never been proven.
Trump would typically be all over these kinds of allegations, if for no other reason than that it really animates his base. But when asked about the situation on Wednesday, Trump was remarkably muted.
During an appearance on Fox News before Fauci pleaded the Fifth, Trump was asked about new disclosures from Fauci’s diaries, which conservative media have pitched as damning.
Trump basically shrugged.
“He was a much bigger player in the Biden administration,” Trump said. “I grew tired of him. He was — you remember that, you know he wanted to close everything down.”
After Fauci pleaded the Fifth and sparked outrage among some Republicans — who called for him to be held in contempt of Congress — Trump downplayed Fauci’s role in decision-making during the pandemic.
“I inherited Fauci,” Trump said at a White House event Wednesday afternoon. Trump added that Fauci “made a lot of mistakes and he wasn’t a big factor for me.”
Trump even shrugged off Fauci pleading the Fifth, simply noting he was probably advised to do so by his lawyers. Contrast that with Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said that “no honest person pleads the Fifth”. (The president himself, of course, has invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 400 times in a single deposition.)
And this tracks with how Trump has talked about Fauci for years. While he’s occasionally criticized Fauci’s advice, he’s also praised him as a man and downplayed his significance. He certainly hasn’t joined in the most speculative theories, despite his propensity for conspiracies.
Indeed, before Wednesday, the last time Trump expounded on Fauci at length, according to the Factbase archive of Trump’s public comments, was more than two years ago.
During an appearance on the “All In” podcast, a host asked Trump about Fauci supposedly covering up the government’s role in gain-of-function research.
Trump instead said he canceled a research grant related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology during his first term because it amounted to “paying money to China.”
And when asked twice if Fauci had lied to him about the origins of Covid, Trump punted both times.
When right-wing podcaster Tim Pool asked him the month prior about Elon Musk’s “Prosecute Fauci” post on social media, Trump instead talked about canceling the research grant and downplayed Fauci’s importance in his administration.
During the 2024 presidential primaries, Trump occasionally tried to link Fauci to his opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But otherwise, it wasn’t even a campaign issue for him.
Looking back to late in Trump’s first term and the months after, Trump would occasionally talk about how he liked Fauci personally, even if he didn’t rely on his advice.
“I like Dr. Fauci,” Trump said in July 2021. “I actually get along with him great. But they said, ‘Why didn’t you fire him?’ I said, no, he was good. He’d recommend something, I’d do the opposite, and we always turned out to be right.”
“I get along very well with Anthony,” Trump said in October 2020.
During a May 2021 interview on Candace Owens’s podcast, Trump even seemed to ask for some of the credit Fauci was being given for the Covid vaccine, saying, “They praised Fauci. And yet, Fauci worked for me.”
In between these comments, Trump gave Fauci a presidential commendation. In doing so, the White House credited Fauci and dozens of others “for their exceptional efforts on Operation Warp Speed”.
It all illustrates why the GOP’s sudden Fauci focus might be problematic for Trump.
This was a guy who was front and center for the Trump administration for months during the pandemic. While he and Trump certainly tussled publicly, Trump never seemed inclined to go for a full break. That happens occasionally with Trump when it comes to certain people; it seems like someone is a likely target for his typical demonization campaigns, but he pulls his punches.
And if Fauci indeed helped kill millions of people — a completely unfounded allegation, to be sure — Trump would have played a major role in enabling him. He would even have given him an award after much of that supposed damage was done.
It’s a lot like how the GOP’s anti-vaccine fervor was so tough for Trump, in that he played a major role in creating the Covid vaccine.
Even aside from that, Trump might be skeptical there is all that much to be gained politically from this.
A poll last year showed a majority of Americans still trusted Fauci, after all. And Trump barely mentioned him on the 2024 campaign trail, even as much of the conservative base remained apoplectic over Covid lockdowns.
It’s unclear if the GOP will indeed feature Fauci during the home stretch of the 2026 campaign. At the very least, it could help them inject some enthusiasm into a dejected base.
But to do so, they probably need some help from Trump. And he doesn’t seem overly keen.
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