https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-1-22-2021-n1255475
“AUCI: Yeah. I mean, it`s such an unusual, aberrant situation, Rachel, where you had at the very top, and I — you know, I don`t take any great pleasure in criticizing presidential leadership or the people around the president, but we had a situation where science was distorted and/or rejected. And a lot of pressure was put on individuals and organizations to do things that were not directly related to what their best opinion would be, vis-a-vis the science.
You know, I had pressure put on me but I resisted it and I had to do something that was not comfortable, but I did it, and I had to be directly contradicting not only the president but some of the people around the president who were saying things that just were not consistent with the science.
I am not a political appointee. So, you know, this whole idea about, you know, we`re going to fire him and, you know, that kind of stuff — I mean, I didn`t want to be at odds with the president, because I have a lot of respect for the office of the presidency. But there was conflict at different levels with different people and different organizations, and a lot of pressure being put on to do things that just are not compatible with the science.
And I think the only way that happens is when you have leadership from the very top and people surrounding the leadership that essentially let that happen. It`s a real aberrancy — I`ve been — I`ve served now, this is my seventh administration, Rachel, and I`ve been advising administrations and presidents on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, people with different ideologies.
And even with differences in ideology, there never was this real affront on science. So it really was an aberrancy that I haven`t seen in the almost 40 years that I`ve been doing this. So, it`s just one of those things that is chilling when you see it happen.”