The commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence may have deeper legal implications, and the Redskins who change their name may have more cultural significance.
But the growing war between President Trump and Anthony Fauci could have a more immediate impact on the pandemic that is increasingly devastating our country.
While it’s easy to interpret this simply as a media-generated dispute, it represents a fundamental clash over how to handle the record-breaking coronavirus, rather than fade away in the July heat, as the administration once predicted.
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Without a doubt, the accusation that the White House has made an “oppo dump” in Fauci is quite exaggerated. To me, that means stealthy document transfer or encrypted digital communication to put the mess in the hands of journalists. Trump’s team is only stabbing Fauci in the front.
And they are doing so by pointing out their past public statements, which are obviously a fair game.
Behind the scenes, the President has not spoken to Fauci in over a month.
Make no mistake, the President is the one who makes the decisions and Fauci is a medical expert who, on his own, is not in charge of setting the policy. Still, the 79-year-old doctor, who has been part of the government’s infectious disease agency since the Reagan administration, is widely respected, and part of his job is to work on a vaccine.
To an administration that has been accused of ignoring science, this seems somewhat mean. But there is a major shock here: Fauci portrays himself as a truth accountant, and Trump wants to control the administration’s message, which is that the pandemic is under control and things will improve.
Admittedly, it’s a tougher sale when the number of new daily Covid-19 cases increased more than 66,000 before the weekend, and Florida broke the one-day record for a state on Sunday with more than 15,000 cases. And it comes at a time when the president pressures governors, with a threatened funding limit, to physically reopen the nation’s schools in September.
What the White House has done, among other things, is basically keep Fauci off television. “Face the Nation” presenter Margaret Brennan told viewers that she has been trying to book it for three months. Briefings for the coronavirus task force have become infrequent, delivered to Mike Pence and moving out of the White House, and Fauci’s hours were such that he was unable to attend the latter.
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Instead, he’s been doing podcasts and print interviews, like one in which he told the Financial Times: “I have a reputation, as you probably have discovered, for telling the truth at all times and not for sugary stuff. And that may be one of the reasons I haven’t been on television much lately. “
The Washington Post reports that White House communications assistants approved Fauci’s appearances on PBS “NewsHour”, “Meet the Press” and a CNN city council. But those were canceled after Fauci held a Facebook Live event with Democratic Senator Doug Jones and questioned Trump’s claim that the country’s lowest death rate was a sign of progress, calling it a “false narrative.”
“Our biggest problem with Fauci is to stop criticizing the working group. . . and try to fix it, “an administration official told the Post.
Trump, meanwhile, has called Fauci “a good man, but he has made many mistakes.”
Which brings us to the official counterattack.
“Several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong about things,” says a statement sent by the White House to journalists.
The Post says this “included a long list of the scientist’s comments from the start of the outbreak. Those included his early doubt that people without symptoms could play a major role in the spread of the virus … They also point to public assurances Fauci did at the end of February, at the time of the first case of community transmission in the United States, that “at the moment, for the moment, there is no need to change anything that he is doing day by day.”
Of course he has made some mistakes, Fauci supporters say. But when he minimized the need for masks from the start, it was because he was concerned about shortages and wanted to keep them for health workers.
The New York Times, picking up on the story yesterday, said the White House omitted Fauci’s words, in an NBC interview, immediately after his comment on “nothing needs to be changed”:
“Right now, the risk is still low, but this could change. When you start to see the spread of the community, this could change and force you to be much more vigilant in doing things that would protect you from the spread. ”
Asked yesterday by CNN’s Jim Acosta why the White House was “tearing” Fauci apart, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the statement came in response to questions from the Post and that the two men “have always had a very good relationship. of work”.
The president has mentioned Fauci’s high approval ratings. A Times poll last month found that 67 percent of Americans trusted Fauci in Covid-19, while 26 percent trusted Trump.
If Fauci were a political representative, he would probably have already taken the path of Jeff Sessions, Jim Mattis and John Bolton. But as a career official, you cannot be fired. So the White House is clearly putting it aside.
It is a shame that the two men, despite their contrasting styles, cannot find a way to work together, as this is a distraction in the war against their common enemy: the virus itself.
Footnote: President Trump retweeted the following missive from game show host Chuck Woolery:
“The most outrageous lies are those of Covid 19. Everyone lies. The CDC, the media, the Democrats, our doctors, not all, but the majority, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the elections and preventing the economy from coming back, it’s about the elections. I’m sick of it … There is so much evidence, yes scientific evidence, that schools should open this fall. It is worldwide and it is overwhelming. BUT NO.”
