Biden joked during pandemic that Fauci could be his veep: book

WASHINGTON — President Biden liked to joke during the height of the pandemic that controversial ex-COVID czar Anthony Fauci could replace Kamala Harris as his No. 2, a bombshell new book says.

As Biden’s team scrambled to tackle the coronavirus in 2021, the president would quip during meetings that his then-White House chief medical adviser should sit in the vice president’s chair.

“When the president assembled his COVID team, he would jokingly direct Anthony Fauci to sit in the vice president’s chair,” according to “The Last Politician” by Franklin Foer — who says he had “unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades.”

For his part, Fauci “struggled to contain his exuberance” about working with Biden, says the book, which went on sale Tuesday.

A new administration was in charge of ending the pandemic — one that would listen to him, unlike former President Donald Trump’s, Foer writes.

Fauci had been “traumatized” by public speaking events with Trump, who had infamously asked scientists if there was a way to inject disinfectant into humans to kill the coronavirus, the book says.

Trump later claimed the comment was “sarcastic.”

“When Fauci made his way to the podium in the White House briefing room for the first time after the [Biden] inauguration, he felt a surge of traumatic memories wash over him,” Foer writes. “For the first time in years, he was no longer in the awkward position of having to correct the administration he served.”

But Biden would harangue Fauci during his first month as president with a “challenging question,” according to the book: “When would the nation return to normal?”

The president was deeply reliant on the controversial figure’s advice and assistance, so much so that when other public health officials attempted to draft an answer, “Biden would disregard them and ask to speak with Fauci,” the author says.

Later, when new variants of the coronavirus began making their way to the United States, Biden pressured Fauci to discover whether the coronavirus vaccine would protect against them, Foer says.

But Fauci said it would take weeks to find out, causing the administration great anxiety with the unknown, the biography says.

“There was no avoiding the fact that they were in for a painful period of ignorance, unsure of whether the virus had defeated the vaccine, unsure of the new strain’s severity, unsure of whether the existing stockpile of tests could even detect its presence,” Foer writes of the administration.