Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina Dr. ANTHONY FAUCI, the Biden administration’s go-to communicator on Covid-19, has almost entirely stopped appearing on Fox News since July. It’s not for lack of an invitation. Shows across the cable news channel, including ones with news hosts like BRET BAIER and NEIL CAVUTO, have been trying to book Fauci for months but he’s been turning them down, according to an official familiar with bookings at Fox News. It’s not exactly a surprise given the channel’s coverage of the doctor. Just in the past 48 hours, host TUCKER CARLSON called him “a shorter version of Benito Mussolini” and put up an image dubbing him the “Patron Saint of Wuhan.” Fox News guest commentator and streaming show host LARA LOGAN said “people” compare him to the infamous Nazi doctor, JOSEPH MENGELE. Fauci likely has limited effectiveness with Fox News’ audience anyway, in part because of Fox News’ steady drumbeat of critical coverage of vaccine and mask mandates, lockdowns, and other measures to stop Covid’s spread. And it’s one of the reasons Fauci, who for decades has served as one of the nation’s most reliable voices on public health, has emerged as a partisan lightning rod over the 18-plus months of the pandemic. But Fauci’s absence from Fox shows also means that the Biden administration’s most public-facing figure in the effort to contain Covid-19 is not a presence on the country’s most watched cable news network, with an audience that includes many of the people the Biden team is still trying to get vaccinated. National Institute of Health Director FRANCIS COLLINS has helped fill the void with several appearances on Fox News shows, but he announced in October that he is retiring by year’s end. The Biden team also sends out Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY to appear on Fox News, but he has not been front-and-center on Biden’s Covid-19 efforts. When the White House released a photo Monday of Biden in the Oval Office meeting with his team about the Omicron variant, Murthy was not in it. That has left the Biden team with few go-to communicators for conservative audiences who remain hesitant about the vaccine. The White House said they will continue to send guests onto Fox News after Collins leaves, although it’s unclear if that will include Fauci. A White House official said that “since the beginning of this pandemic, Americans across the country and of every background have looked to Dr. Fauci for honest and direct answers to some of the toughest questions our country currently faces. He has been an invaluable resource to the President, the COVID response team, and to the American people, which is why he blankets media almost every day of the week.” Fauci began turning down more Fox appearances when hosts asked him on to respond to Sen. RAND PAUL’s unproven allegations that Fauci’s agency funded research that could enhance viruses, known as gain-of-function research, or calls for the NIAID director to resign, an official familiar with his thinking said. The official added that Fauci had good interviews with hosts on the network but that they needed to put “daylight” between accusations from Paul and comments like Logan’s. “Would you go on a show that compared you to a Nazi war criminal? Do you really think that's an opportunity to get a fair hearing?” said ERIC SCHULTZ, an adviser to BARACK OBAMA and former White House deputy press secretary. “I don't think we should blame Fauci for not appearing on the network that has undermined his credibility every step of the way.” A Fox News spokesperson declined to comment. Some Democrats privately concede that Fauci at times has not helped himself with some of the conservative audiences he wants to reach, even as they say that the attacks on him have been unrelenting. One Democratic operative flagged Fauci’s interview with Face the Nation last week as an example of a misstep, in which he criticized his critics as anti-science. “It's easy to criticize,” he said. “But they're really criticizing science, because I represent science. That's dangerous. To me, that's more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me.” Conservatives, meanwhile, argue that too often Fauci veers into politics or is too enamored with his own celebrity. Trump White House officials still fume at his wide-ranging Washington Post interview the week before the 2020 election, in which he criticized the administration and said the United States needed an “abrupt change” in public health practices and behaviors. “We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” he said. Of course, he did end up being right. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you OLIVIA RAISNER, traveling content director? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. Or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098. | 
