First, a prediction: You are going to get fired sometime between now and mid-November. Now, a choice: When, how, and why that happens is your choice and will decide your legacy.
If you continue on your current path -- trying to succeed at the impossible balancing act of maintaining some level of professional integrity without directly contradicting Trump or his political appointees -- you will last until about two weeks after the election. At that point, if Trump loses, he will blame you for undercutting his message and he will fire you. If Trump wins, he will no longer need you as window-dressing and will view you as an unacceptable independent power center, and he will fire you.
There is another path. At your next press event, tell the entire story. Tell why and how our response to COVID-19 is so awful. Tell of your attempts to implement the pandemic response plans left by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the response to those attempts. Tell exactly who knew what, when they knew it, and what they did (or didn't do). Tell what mortality estimates where provided, and the response to those estimates. Tell why tens of thousands of Americans died who didn’t have to. When you do that, he will fire you.
If you choose the first path, you will keep your job for another two months, but you will be remembered as one of those good-hearted but feckless souls who tried to balance the impossible, and ended up neither performing the job as it should be performed, nor doing everything possible to end this regime. If you choose the second path, you will no longer be “in the room where it happens,” but you can make a difference when it matters. And let’s be frank — you’ve already been sidelined, so at this point you are mainly a spectator, anyway.
Would you rather be remembered with Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Marie Yovanovitch, or would you rather be remembered with Robert Mueller and James Comey?
