WATCH: Fauci claims he never recommended lockdowns— in 2020 he said Trump should ‘shut the country down’

In October 2020, however, he admitted to doing exactly that. This comes as Dr. Deborah Birx released her book, in which she shared details of a meeting with Fauci and others in March 2020, where they agreed to press for a two-week-to-stop-the-spread strategy, with plans to ask for more restrictions of that kind after that.

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On Monday's episode of Rising, Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon asked Fauci whether he would lock down schools were he able to go back and do it all over again, citing the negative implications such policies have had on children and parents across the country.

"First of all, I didn't recommend locking anything down," Fauci replied, suggesting it had been the CDC's idea.

"Go back and look at my statements," he added, "that we need to do everything we can to keep the schools open and safe."

July 26, 2022

Fauci's recent claims contradict statements he made during a Q&A session with students at the College of the Holy Cross in October 2020.

When asked about the most crucial decision he made during the pandemic, Fauci cited a recommendation to then-president Trump to follow the lead of many Asian nations and implement full-scale lockdowns.

"When it became clear that we had community spread in the country ... I recommended to the president that we shut the country down."

Fauci added that it was a "difficult decision" because he knew that there would be consequences at a societal and economic level if such lockdowns were put in place.

He went on to lament the fact that the US didn't "shut down completely the way China did," suggesting that because some things remained open, the spread wasn't entirely stopped.

As Newsweek reported at the time, the US was the worst-hit nation in the world, with over 7.5 million cases confirmed and more than 200,000 deaths.