The White House unloaded on Fauci after he called out Trump for allowing a neuroradiologist with no training with infectious disease to shape coronavirus strategy
At a time when Trump is downplaying the rising cases in the vast majority of states, dangerously holding huge rallies with few masks and no social distancing, and lodging the false and outlandish claim that doctors are exaggerating the number of Covid deaths for profit, Fauci told the Post that the nation is “in for a whole lot of hurt.”
“All the stars are aligned in the wrong place” as the country heads indoors in colder weather, Fauci told the newspaper in an interview late Friday — a day when the US set a global record for the most daily cases and the nation surpassed 229,000 deaths. “You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Fauci, who is widely trusted by the public after a lengthy career serving under six presidents from both parties, said Meadows was being candid in the interview last weekend where he told Tapper it was not possible to control the virus. Fauci has adopted the polar opposite strategy by repeatedly telling Americans that they can change the trajectory of the virus and save lives if they adhere to mask use, social distancing protocols and other safety precautions.
“I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy,” Fauci told the Post of Meadows’ admission to Tapper. “He is straightforward in telling you what’s on his mind. I commend him for that.”
“I have real problems with that guy,” the Washington Post quoted Fauci as saying about Atlas. “He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Fauci and Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House task force, were fixtures at the White House in the early days of the pandemic, often appearing alongside Trump at White House briefings to detail the administration’s efforts to fight the virus. But Trump grew increasingly frustrated with Fauci’s media appearances and what he viewed as the doctor’s negative tone about the trajectory of the virus. (Fauci told the Washington Post he was choosing his words carefully so as not to be prohibited from doing future interviews.)
“#Insecurity #EmbarrassingHimself #Exposed #CantThrowABall #NoTimeForPolitics,” Atlas tweeted.
In a statement, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere sharply criticized Fauci, claiming he was inappropriately playing politics a few days before Election Day.
“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said in the statement. “As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent— exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp.”
Deere appeared to be referring to the contrast that Fauci drew in the interview between the Trump and Biden campaign’s differing approaches to the pandemic. Biden’s campaign, he was quoted as saying, “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” while the Trump campaign is viewing the virus through the lens of “the economy and reopening the country.”
Campaigns clash over Covid-19
At the end of one of the worst weeks for the US in daily coronavirus case counts, the Trump and Biden campaigns continued to clash over the President’s handling of Covid-19 on the trail Saturday as Biden campaigned in Michigan and Trump held four rallies in Pennsylvania.
Trump once suggested that the virus had not been a serious problem for himself, first lady Melania Trump or his teenage son Barron, glossing over the fact that the first family receives the highest caliber of medical care in the country and had access to experimental treatments that are not available to most Americans.
Trump, who pledged to “terminate” the virus Saturday with “science, medicine and groundbreaking therapies,” was also critical of Biden’s relentless focus on Covid-19 in the closing days of the campaign.
“All he does is talk about Covid, Covid,” Trump said of Biden. “He has nothing else to talk about. … We agree it’s serious and we’ve done an incredible job. And at some point they are going to recognize that.”
“He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage and now he’s accusing doctors of profiting off this pandemic — think about that,” Obama said. “He cannot fathom, he does not understand the notion that somebody would risk their life to save others without trying to make a buck.”
Obama argued that if Trump had been focused on halting the spread of Covid-19 from the beginning of this year, “cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs” and noted that some of the areas where the President has held rallies have seen spikes in cases. He mocked Trump’s “obsession” with crowd size in the midst of a pandemic.
“You know when a country is going through a pandemic, that’s not what you’re supposed to be worrying about,” Obama said. “And that’s the difference between Joe Biden and Trump right there. Trump cares about feeding his ego. Joe cares about keeping you and your family safe. And he’s less interested in feeding his ego with having big crowds than he is making sure he’s not going around making more and more people sick. That’s what you should expect from a president.”
