In final White House briefing, Fauci asks Americans to remember him: 'I gave it all I got'

White House coronavirus adviser and longtime federal public health worker Anthony Fauci on Tuesday asked Americans to remember him as he departs his decades-long streak within the federal government, telling the U.S. that he "gave it all I got" over roughly forty years of employment. 

“I’ll let other people judge the value or not of my accomplishments," Fauci said at his final White House press briefing on Tuesday. "But I would like people to remember about what I’ve done, is that every day for all of those years I’ve given it everything that I have and I’ve never left anything on the field."

“So if they want to remember me, whether they judge rightly or wrongly what I’ve done, I gave it all I got for a few decades,” he said.

Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases known for years for being the highest-paid federal employee, has been a constant national presence at the federal level over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The doctor was known as an early and aggressive proponent of economic shutdowns, society-wide lockdowns, strict masking policies and other severe mitigation measures from the outset of the pandemic.

Tension with the Trump administration brought distance between Fauci and the White House as the crisis wore on, but the doctor was again actively involved with coronavirus efforts with the onset of the Biden administration in January of 2021.