Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Washington Post obtained one month of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails, and the results are telling as to where the Trump administration, the world, and Fauci were in the handling of COVID-19. Republicans attacked Fauci—who has served seven presidents—as someone with a political bent against their party. The basic contention was that science and the Republican Party just didn’t work in favor of the former president, and Fauci’s briefings and handling of the outbreak cost them the White House.
The Washington Post’s reporting shows something very different. What becomes clear in just a sliver of the pandemic is that Fauci didn’t look at a party or at politics; instead, he did something Republicans didn’t like: his job. Fauci kept an open mind to science, reviewing the data as it came in and answering everyone frankly. He didn’t hold back to make political friends.
From The Washington Post report:
“I was getting every single kind of question, mostly people who were a little bit confused about the mixed messages that were coming out of the White House and wanted to know what’s the real scoop,” Fauci said in a recent interview. “I have a reputation that I respond to people when they ask for help, even if it takes a long time. And it’s very time consuming, but I do” respond.
The released emails show that Fauci indeed tried to answer many queries, sometimes hitting “send” well after midnight. And even as Trump ratcheted up attacks on China for not containing the virus after it was first discovered there, Fauci sought to maintain ties with Gao, a well-regarded Chinese scientific leader — and Gao with him.
Some Republicans in that period saw the problem, yet their concerns were dismissed by their own party:
On April 10, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) emailed Fauci a question about hydroxychloroquine, a drug Trump was aggressively pushing as a treatment for the coronavirus despite scant evidence of its efficacy. The drug is used to treat lupus, and Upton asked whether anyone with that disease had contracted the coronavirus.
The next day, Fauci wrote back that the answer was “almost certainly yes” but that there was not enough data to make any final conclusions. Their electronic rapport intensified when Upton, a moderate and one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, tried to explain why some of his colleagues were trying to block more money for the U.S. pandemic response.
“Keep being a science truth teller,” Upton urged Fauci in another email.
While the data shows that in the first month Fauci responded to an unbelievable number of requests and questions, Republicans unhappy with the result have continued to attack and demean the doctor.
From Yahoo News:
For Fauci, a man who has dedicated his career to stopping the spread of infectious diseases, the accusations that he is somehow behind the emergence of the virus amount to a case of blaming the messenger.
"It's a little bit bizarre, I would say. ... Peter Navarro saying I created the virus?" Fauci said in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "Isn't that weird? Come on."
From the early days of the pandemic, Republican criticism of Fauci has been relentless, a fact that stems from his sometimes public disagreements with Trump's false statements downplaying the threat of the virus. It was Fauci, after all, who was telling Americans to stay home, wear masks and keep businesses shuttered, while Trump advised the opposite.
The decision to attack Fauci, which is ongoing, has nothing at all to do with science. It isn’t about working toward solutions.
One-thousand academic papers. The highest awards and praise from Republican and Democratic presidents. At 80 years old, Dr. Anthony Fauci took on one of the greatest threats to the globe and he did so with the best mind that could be brought to the game. While Republicans want to challenge his thought process with an optician and a failed wrestling coach, he never wavered from looking out for the good of the whole nation. Not only Republican or Democratic people, but the health of everyone.
Republicans will spend every moment they can vilifying him. They will use Fox News, NewsMax, and OAN. What they won’t use—won't even think to use—is the truth. Because as The Washington Post showed us, just in a glimpse, the truth shows that the good doctor was the man we needed at the moment we needed him.
