President Donald Trump announced Friday he had cancelled federal security detail for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease.

“When you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off,” Trump told reporters during a press briefing in Fletcher, N.C. “You can’t have them forever.”

Trump said the security detail for the 84-year-old immunologist and former chief medical adviser to former President Joe Biden was removed Thursday because it can’t last a lifetime and Fauci could hire his own protection.

A doctor for the National Institutes of Health for more than half a century, Fauci led the federal health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to harsh criticism from Republicans about studies of the origin of the disease and the lockdowns to combat it during the first year.