“Wait, by the way, gentlemen – you know everyone … This is Scott Atlas. Do you know that?” Trump asked.
The man Trump pointed out was Dr. Scott Atlas, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who frequently appears on Fox News and has advised Republicans in the past. And crucially, contrary to the government’s medical experts who have advised Trump so far, he has taken a public stance on the virus much closer to Trump’s – including deciphering the idea that schools cannot reopen this fall if ” hysteria ”and press for the repayment of the high school sport.
Several months after the pandemic that swept the nation, he made his debut in the briefing room with a new title: Adviser to the President.
“He’s working with us and will work with us on the coronavirus,” Trump said. “And he has a lot of great ideas. And he thinks what we did is really good, and now we’ll take it to a new level.”
In a statement on his inauguration, White House spokesman Judd Deere Atlas called “a world-renowned doctor and scientist of advanced medical care and health care policy” who has been brought in “to help defeat China. We are all in this fight together, and only the media would disrupt and diminish Dr. Atlas’ highly infamous career simply because he came to serve the president. “
With the coronavirus largely uncontrolled spread across the U.S., Trump has called on hesitant administrators to reopen their states and school administrators to put children back in class. While Trump believed his drive would help woo voter advocacy, some districts have increasingly turned to virtual models, while others, like some school districts in Georgia, have only opened up to see a cluster of new cases.
Atlas has been an outspoken critic of bad lockdowns and has publicly agreed with the president on all of the above measures. He joins Trump’s team at a time when he is getting more and more involved with the other medical experts in his administration, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
Although Monday was Trump’s first public introduction, several sources with knowledge of the relationship told CNN that Atlas had been informally advising for weeks. Trump first cited Atlas on Fox News, where he claimed it did not matter “how many cases” there are in the US, wrongly claiming that those under 18 “essentially have no risk of dying” implied teachers who are at high risk for contracting Covid-19 would “whites need to protect themselves”, baseless claimed “children almost do not pass the disease” and without proof blamed a rise in cases in southern states on protests and border crossings .
“I’m an adviser,” Atlas told Fox News Monday night when asked about his new role. “I was asked by the president to advise him and it is clear that the answer is, ‘Yes, sir, and any way I can help I will do this.’ “
A senior medical doctor who attended the University of Chicago School of Medicine, Atlas has advised Republicans in the past, including Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer who has also found conspiracy theories about coronavirus. Atlas will now serve as an adviser to the president working from the Executive Office building next door to the White House. (The White House declined to say whether Atlas received a salary from taxpayers.)
Several of the president’s allies welcomed Atlas into his team, seeing him as a voice with medical references that agreed with their skepticism about guidance and advice from experts such as Fauci and Birx. On his radio program this week, Rush praised Limbaugh Atlas and said “he is against Fauci.”
But Atlas is not only seen as someone who can counter the medical advice of the top experts on infectious disease. Trump has also recently become disillusioned with Birx’s medical advice and has expressed skepticism about her since praising House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview after Pelosi criticized her. Two officials have expressed concern that Trump has in several months brought Atlas into the pandemic to reduce the voices of medical experts with whom he disagrees.
Several of the health professionals on the task force raised questions about Atlas, asking each other who he was and what his role would be.
It seems that Atlas will soon be established in its new position. He recently met with other officials for an outing at the Trump Hotel, has been on several calls to strategize the administration’s response and even led another by himself, two sources said. He is also expected to appear on Wednesday at an event at the opening of schools with the president.
But it was the message Trump sent by bringing Atlas to two coronavirus introductions this week that resonated most with the rest of the task force. When the president initially returned his daily briefings, he told the assistants that he did not want the experts who had occasionally contradicted him to join him any longer. Instead, he claimed, he would convey the message of the administration that day by himself. (Birx sat aside at one briefing.)
This week, Atlas has already attended two briefings, although he was not given a speaking role.
CNN’s Ali Main contributed to this report.
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