Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro speaks to members of the press outside the West Wing of the White House on June 18, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | fake pictures
The White House said Wednesday it did not approve of a scathing opinion from President Donald Trump’s business adviser, who wrote that the chief infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, “has been wrong about everything I have interacted with.”
Peter Navarro’s op-ed, published on USA Today, “did not go through the normal White House approval processes,” White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said on Twitter.
The piece is “Peter’s opinion alone,” Farah said in the tweet, adding that Trump “values the experience of medical professionals who advise his Administration.”
Farah did not immediately respond when asked how the White House planned to respond to Navarro for overlooking his normal channels of communication. The Department of Health and Human Services did not provide immediate comment on the opinion piece.
The administration’s efforts to distance itself from the Navarro article came days after the White House denied that it was trying to discredit Fauci, who has sometimes given warnings about the coronavirus’s trajectory that collides with Trump’s more optimistic rhetoric.
“To the notion that there are opposition investigations and that there is Fauci against the president, it couldn’t be further from the truth,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a press conference. Monday. “Dr. Fauci and the President have always had a very good working relationship.”
Trump said Monday that although “I don’t always agree with” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “we get along very well, I personally like him.”
But other White House officials have shot Fauci in recent days.
A White House official told NBC News on Sunday that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong about things.” That official provided the outlet with a list that resembles a document of the opposition investigation type used in political campaigns, highlighting Fauci’s earlier comments on the virus.
That same day, Trump’s close aide, Dan Scavino, shared a political cartoon that mocked Fauci by portraying him as a tap whose mouthpiece drips alarming messages about the pandemic, such as “Schools are closed this fall!” and “Indefinite blocking!” – That they threaten to drown the economy.
“Sorry, Dr. Faucet! At least you know if I am going to disagree with a colleague, like you, going public, and not a coward, behind leaking journalists,” Scavino wrote on Facebook alongside the post. “See you tomorrow!”
Navarro writes in his USA Today article that Fauci “has good manners with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with.”
The trade adviser accuses Fauci of having “fought the president’s valiant decision” in late January to restrict travel to the US from China, and to minimize the risk of a possible pandemic when the virus began to emerge.
“Now Fauci says that a declining death rate does not matter when it is the most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening,” Navarro wrote. Administration officials, including Trump, have recently noted that the death rate has not increased in line with the increase in cases currently being experienced in several southern and western states. “The lower the death rate, the faster and more we can open,” Navarro wrote.
“So when you ask me if I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution,” said Navarro.
This is developing news. Please check for updates.
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