Fauci texts on vaccine side-effects are 'shocking': Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
📅 Aug 12, 2026NewsNation9 MIN11 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya joins NewsNation to discuss the Trump administration's "Operation Warp Speed" and whether ...
What Jay Bhattacharya said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya called Anthony Fauci's private text messages about COVID vaccine risks for pregnant women 'shocking' and 'irresponsible,' arguing Fauci publicly declared the vaccine safe for pregnant women while privately acknowledging scientific uncertainty. Bhattacharya expressed sadness over Fauci's legacy, noting he once admired Fauci for his HIV/AIDS work. He praised Operation Warp Speed as an 'enormous technological success' but criticized vaccine deployment for lacking informed consent and for mandates that 'crushed confidence.' Regarding President Trump's executive order scaling back childhood vaccines, Bhattacharya said Trump is 'reflecting what he hears from people' and is not a public health person, but he defended the order as a 'pro-public health move' that restores parental decision-making and aligns with European standards. He predicted public trust will be restored and vaccine uptake will increase for the most important vaccines.
Key takeaways
Bhattacharya called Fauci's private texts on vaccine risks for pregnant women 'shocking' and 'irresponsible' for not sharing uncertainty publicly.
He said Fauci 'abused his position' as NIAID head and ended his career in 'infamy.'
He praised Operation Warp Speed as a 'technological marvel' but criticized deployment for lacking informed consent.
He defended Trump's childhood vaccine executive order as a 'pro-public health move' that restores parental autonomy.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
January 2021
When Fauci sent the text about vaccine risks for pregnant women
1:34What's your reaction to these text messages that appear to show he might have been concerned this could be risky for pregnant women to take the COVID vaccine, but he did not say that in public messaging?
2:53Do you feel vindicated now as you're seeing all these text messages and emails emerge?
5:00You know, there are many who believe that it is one of the crowning legacies of President Trump's first term. Do you agree with that?
Tonight we're getting yet another revealing glimpse into the private thoughts and personal messages of Dr. Anthony Fauci during his time as the public face of the government's coronavirus response. 11 text messages out of more than 34,000 released by Senate Republican senators this week revealed that more than a month after the first coronavirus vaccines were made publicly available, Fauci was still privately grappling with whether they posed any risk to pregnant women. And in January 2021, in an exchange between Fauci and the Surgeon General and the CDC Director at the time, Fauci flagged a possible issue, saying, quote, I asked around a bit, and since many people have significant side effects and fever after the second dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester, end quote. A week later, Fauci texted saying the FDA found no red flags among pregnant women in COVID vaccine trials and that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh any potential risks. That is a position the CDC still appears to stand behind. The text messages from Fauci only add to the scrutiny over his controversial legacy and whether he withheld critical information or questions about that information while at the same time insisting the vaccines were safe and supporting the government's vaccine mandates.
My next guest has long been critical of Fauci's handling of the pandemic. National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya joins us now live. Doctor, great to have you on. What's your reaction to these text messages that appear to show he might have been concerned this could be risky for pregnant women to take the COVID vaccine, but he did not say that in public messaging?
I mean, it's kind of shocking, actually, because he was the public face of the COVID response and he recommended that basically everyone get the vaccine. And he was the face of the vaccine mandates. January 2021, when he sent that text message, it was really a new vaccine. Normally when you are dealing with pregnant women, you don't recommend untested products, and that's the setting. It takes a lot of work to say, okay, it is safe for pregnant women. He was reasonably reflecting in his private communications the scientific debate that was going on at the time and the discussions of the time. But he didn't tell the public that. Instead, he essentially told the public that it was safe for pregnant women to take it when he didn't know. I think it's very irresponsible.
You, an early critic of these vaccine mandates, in December of 2020 wrote an op-ed urging that they be used for older people and people who had risky conditions, and that there shouldn't be sweeping requirements that everybody of all ages, including pregnant women, get the vaccines. You also co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, saying, quote, current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects. Fauci called your concerns at the time nonsense and dangerous. Do you feel vindicated now as you're seeing all these text messages and emails emerge?
I think he abused his position as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the time. Essentially, a devastating take on my colleague for calling for opening—and, you know, indignation is not the right term. I mean, what I feel is a sense of sadness. If we had followed the science, what many European countries did, for instance, in keeping their schools open in the fall of 2020 and onward—if we had avoided the mandates, we could have avoided a lot of damage to a lot of people and really terrible harm to the public confidence in public health that I'm trying to overturn and restore in my position as NIH Director. I mean, it's ironic because Fauci held himself out as the exemplar of the science, and in many ways he was—he was a hero to me during the HIV/AIDS pandemic, right? He did a lot of things that really did benefit a lot of people. I held him as one of my heroes in medicine. And so it just pains me to see that he's ending his career in this sort of infamy, because he should have embraced the basic principles of telling people the truth, telling people what he actually thought, but not trying to lord it over the science—just reflecting the scientific uncertainty that really existed.
Can you hear me? So I was asking you at the end of the last break—Operation Warp Speed is still considered to be a phenomenal success, finding a vaccine that worked so quickly. You know, there are many who believe that it is one of the crowning legacies of President Trump's first term. Do you agree with that?
5 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Bhattacharya, J. (2026, August 12). Fauci texts on vaccine side-effects are 'shocking': Dr. Jay Bhattacharya [Interview transcript]. NewsNation. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1193237/
MLA
Jay Bhattacharya. "Fauci texts on vaccine side-effects are 'shocking': Dr. Jay Bhattacharya." NewsNation, 12 Aug. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1193237/.
BibTeX
@misc{bhattacharya2026_1193237,
author = {Jay Bhattacharya},
title = {Fauci texts on vaccine side-effects are 'shocking': Dr. Jay Bhattacharya},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, NewsNation. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {aug},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1193237/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
