Walter Issacson pulled no punches with tough lines of questioning for the nation’s former chief medical advisor – vaccines, COVID-19 and the Trump administration, kicking off the second day of The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.
Tulane professor and renowned author sat down with Dr. Anthony Fauci Friday morning in McAlister Auditorium to walk through Fauci’s life and analyze controversial public health topics.
Fauci started by discussing his childhood, growing up with a pharmacist father, which taught him “how important service to the community was.” He then discussed his experience attending a Jesuit high school in Brooklyn and how combining humanities and science transformed how he viewed treating patients.
“I think of medicine and science as a person who has a disease, as opposed to a disease that’s infecting a person,” Fauci said. “When you take that attitude, it gives you a different perspective on medicine and science.”
Isaacson asked if Fauci sees any path towards reconciliation today, to which he replied with, “I hope so.”
“We’ve got to believe that there are better angels in everyone, that there is some commonality of people,” Fauci said. “Because if you look at things now, the amount of divisiveness looks like we have two separate tribes in this country that are very different from each other, and in times of stress, we should have come together more than we did, particularly with COVID. COVID exacerbated the divisiveness that was already in the country.”
To that, Isaacson responded by explaining the divisiveness was a “feeling that the government and the elites were locking us down,”
Then he asked Fauci, “wasn’t it a mistake implementing too many mask mandates and lockdowns when it went against people’s individual freedom?”
“If you are fair and stop the finger pointing, in the beginning, [shutting down] was absolutely essential,” Fauci said. “The only way to immediately shut down the four to 5,000 deaths per day was to shut things down for a while. That was the right choice. The thing we need to reexamine is how long you did that. How long schools were closed, how long industry was shut down.”
When Isaacson began to ask Fauci about his chapter on Trump in his memoir, Fauci smacked his forehead, and the crowd erupted with laughter.
“First things first, I have a great deal of respect for the office of presidency of the United States; I always have,” Fauci said.
“Number two, when the president was saying things that were uncomfortable for me, like when he was overtly criticizing members of the press who I knew and were friends with… I didn’t say anything about it. I’m a physician, a scientist and a public health official. But when he started to say things that were public health-wise and scientifically incorrect, I felt, in order to preserve my personal integrity and my responsibility to the American public, I had to publicly disagree with him.”
“I have to get in front of the microphone and say, no [COVID] is not going to disappear like magic, and no, hydroxychloroquin is not going to be the answer, and that cost me,” Fauci said. “But it was worth it. I would do it over again.”
A Stage for All: The Power of The Public Theater
Simultaneously on the Berger Family Lawn, Oskar Eustis, artistic director of The Public Theater, and Michael Cerveris, a Tony Award-winning actor and musician, discussed the impacts of theater on greater society.
The Public Theater is a nonprofit organization that puts on Shakespeare in the Park, maintains a six-theater complex in Manhattan, and runs a mobile touring unit. This allows the theater to reach people across New York. “The culture belongs to everybody, as a right,” Eustis said.
Cerveris spoke of his experience starring in Fun Home as Bruce Bechdel, a story that explores complex sexualities and LGBTQ+ rights. “They might be against gay rights, yet they all jump to their feet,” Eustis said in discussing the power of a shared artistic experience.
“Theater is the essential democratic art form,” and access to public performance is a right all individuals have, Eustis said. In a commitment to defend equal access to theater, Eustis said the Public Theater will not comply with new diversity, equity and inclusion regulations in exchange for the maintenance of government funding.
A Life in News: CONNIE CHUNG on her Life and Career
After Fauci in McAlister Auditorium, legendary news anchor Connie Chung took the stage with Betsy Fischer Martin. The women spoke of Chung’s early career in journalism with CBS News and the sexism that was unabashed in the industry.
Chung shared personal stories about being spoken down to and sexualized in her workplace. “I call this look that creepy old men give you, I say that I could see the sperm swimming in their eyes,” Chung said.
Nevertheless, Chung went on to become the first Asian-American and the second woman to host a national news program, joining Dan Rather in 1993 on “CBS Evening News.” Chung said Rather “despised” her because just her presence on their shared stage was a threat to his ego.
Even after she was an established news anchor, Chung faced the challenge of raising her son, Matthew, and returning to her career on television news.
“Today’s women are much more able to mix personal life and professional life but it’s still incredibly hard,” Chung said. “When we’re at work, we’re thinking about what we have to do at home and when we’re at home, we’re thinking about what we have to do at work. Men don’t seem to do that.”
Bridging the Divide: A Bipartisan Discussion on America’s Future
Later in the day, former Obama administration senior advisor, David Axelrod, and Bush administration senior advisor, Karl Rove, spoke about the future of American politics. After the laughter from Rove’s Trump impression subsided, Axelrod explained how Democrats lost votes this past election.
“The basic sense of possibility for working people in this country has eroded,” Axelrod said. He attributes the loss of working-class support for the Democratic Party to the lack of economic change improvement for them during the preceding presidency.
However, Trump’s economic promises have yet to prove better. “Trump has to be very careful about this, or he is going to end up exactly where Biden was on economics,” Rove said. “That is when the people say ‘you’re talking about a different economy than I’m living in.’”
Axelrod addressed the recent steps towards government consolidation by means of the federal hiring freeze. Elon Musk’s agency, the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, has “taken a chainsaw to agencies that they know nothing about,” Axelrod said. He explained the government has not become more efficient, but instead, more chaotic.
“This is not about being arrogant about the past, but about what we are for in the future,” Rove said, when considering the 2028 election. “Our democracy is being tested in ways we have never seen before,” Axelrod added.
Fiction, Family + Hard Truths
This afternoon, authors Crystal Hana Kim, Rachel Khong and Madeleine Watts explored topics of anger, identity and love in relation to their newest novels. With the help of moderator Katy Simpson Smith, this program provided an analytical insight into each of their books.
Khong’s 2024 novel “Real Americans” is a story of self-discovery and family dynamics, told from the shifting perspectives of three relatives. As the story progresses, Khong showcases how race, class and location impact relationships both within the family and outside.
She explained that it is these messy elements that truly make the characters human. “I think in real human relationships there’s always mess,” Khong said.
Similar to Khong’s novel, Kim’s “The Stone Home” focuses heavily on family dynamics, as especially between the main character Eunju, and her mother. As these characters are forced into a reformatory in 1980 South Korea, they have to learn to manage their anger without letting it destroy their relationship. “Daughters are often the harshest critics of their mothers – that’s something I’m interested in exploring,” Kim said.
Alternatively, Watts’ “Elegy, Southwest” is more concerned about romantic relationships, as opposed to family ones. She incorporates themes of both romantic and environmental collapse in this story, told from the perspective of a young married couple. “I really wanted to present a relationship where it’s a love story, but also the connection to place is so deeply intertwined,” Watts said
Black in Blues: A Conversation with Imani Perry
Later, author Imani Perry, with the help of moderator Sarah Lewis, explored the complex relationship between Black history and the color blue, in her 2025 novel “Black in Blues.”
Perry argued that the color blue holds a rich history intertwined with Black life, both within and outside the borders of this country. For example, the indigo of the slave trade, the blue gums folklore and the incorporation of “blue notes” in Black music.
When asked about her inspiration to write this novel, Perry said, “I didn’t so much decide as the book called to me.”
