Alternate illustration by Hal Brown
This is in the news today. It is a story being discussed on MSNBC as I write this.
Trump even retweeted this former game show host:
Read about Chuck Woolery’s political views and his personal life here.
Yesterday I also posted a story about Anthony Fauci.
This morning the top story in HuffPost on the main page is shown below. The article itself is titled ”White House Moves To Discredit Fauci Amid Bleak Warnings Over Coronavirus Surge — President Donald Trump is reportedly shunning the infectious disease expert, who has been expressing alarm about soaring infections. The working title in the URL is “white-house-undercuts-fauci_n.”
HuffPost noon update:
The very phrases turns fire on, moves to discredit, undercuts Fauci, and dials up digs are mind boggling when you consider the credibility America’s Covid doctor has compared to the Lysol loving president on trusted virus information has among the public as shown in the most recent NY Times Siena poll just shown on MSNBC:
Here’s an excerpt from HuffPost Trump about how “administration officials moved to undercut Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday amid reports the White House is sidelining the nation’s top infectious disease expert as cases of the coronavirus continue to surge.”
Both The Washington Post and NBC News said they received statements from the White House trying to discredit Fauci, who has given bleak interviews and issued dire warnings in recent days as the number of infections climb to record-breaking levels. The doctor’s assessments have stood in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s push to reopen the country while claiming states with troubling levels of infections are “going to be fine.”
“Several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,” the unnamed official said in a statement to the outlets. The aide included a list of nearly a dozen comments Fauci made early during the pandemic, before scientists developed an understanding of the novel virus.
This NBC News article, “White House seeks to discredit Fauci as coronavirus surges — Many of the statements the White House criticizes Fauci for were based on the best available data at the time and were widely echoed by Trump and other officials” also has a video.
This is from The Guardian:
In an interview for a podcast hosted by the FiveThirtyEight website last week he delivered a damning assessment of the United States’s response to the pandemic in comparison to other countries.
Conceding that some cities and states such as New York had responded better than others, Fauci said: “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.” He added that it was “understandable” why the European Union and others had banned US citizens from entering.
On the role of America’s toxic political climate, he said: “You have to be having blind-folders on and covering your ears to think that we don’t live in a very divisive society now, from a political standpoint … So I think you’d have to make the assumption that if there wasn’t such divisiveness, that we would have a more coordinated approach.”
Although Fauci has been at odds with Trump publicly before – not least over the president’s advocacy for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment – his most recent interventions have strayed from the strictly scientific field to the political. In doing so he has departed from what he has previously said is his guiding credo that “you stay completely apolitical and non-ideological, and you stick to what it is that you do. I’m a scientist and I’m a physician. And that’s it.”
Trump turning on Fauci is not a surprise because the science-based message he is trying to send undermines Trump’s magical and wishful thinking that he can eliminate the virus and take credit for doing so before the election.
He’s described Fauci as a “nice man whose made a lot of mistakes” — this is from the Trump friendly Washington Times:
President Trump on Thursday described Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious diseases expert, as a “nice man” who’s “made a lot of mistakes.”
“Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“Like you don’t have to ban [people] from coming in from very infected China — I did it anyway. We saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” the president said. “I banned Europe from coming in when Italy and when France and when Spain were having all the problems. … We saved hundreds of thousands of lives. A lot of people said don’t do it.
“They’ve been wrong about a lot of things, including face masks. Maybe they’re wrong, maybe not, but a lot of them said don’t wear a mask, don’t wear a mask,” the president said. “Now they are saying wear a mask. So a lot of mistakes were made — a lot of mistakes.”
Trump’s statements amount to desperate contradictory gibberish. This is particularly ironic because Trump is the master of making one statement one day and saying the opposite the next day.
“I disagree with him,” Trump said an interview last week with Greta Van Susteren. “You know, Dr. Fauci said, ‘Don’t wear masks,’ and now he says wear them. And you know, he’s said numerous things, ‘Don’t close off China. Don’t ban China.’ And I did it anyway. I sort of didn’t listen to my experts, and I banned China.” Huffpost
I haven’t even seen Deborah Birx. Trump and the CDC are at odds so I doubt we’ll be seeing their director Robert Redfield.
This is from ABC News:
Two senior level White House sources told ABC News that Fauci has at times been referred to among Trump aides as "Dr. Gloom and Doom."
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in an interview with Fox News Monday morning that Fauci was just “one member" of the White House's coronavirus task force.
“The point of the task force is to be a whole-of-government look at what is best for this country,” she said, pointing to comments the day before from a top official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Adm. Brett Giroir, who told NBC News that Fauci does not necessarily "have the whole national interest in mind.
“That includes Dr. Fauci's opinion, it includes Admiral Giroir’s, and ultimately those conclusions are taken to the president," McEnany said. "So Dr. Fauci's one member of a team, but rest assured his viewpoint is represented, and the information gets to the president through the task force."
Currently Trump is bringing out his junior team to trying to discredit Fauci the embarrassment to the medical profession, Surgeon General Jerome Adams or Admiral Brett Giroir the testing tzar from the Public Health Service. They actually gets to wear a military style uniform.
The poll is still online in yesterday’s diary so you can still add you opinion as to whether you thing Fauci ought to resign. Now that it is clear Trump has put him in the metaphorical White House doghouse I wonder how long Trump will keep him on the task force. Firing him without cause from his job as National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases might be more difficult but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.
Assuming he doesn't resign, how likely do you think Trump will fire him from the task force and/or also try to have him removed from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases? Do you think he will eliminate or restructure the task force eliminating truth tellers like Fauci to make sure it only conveys politically expedient information?