HuffPost reported Friday an interview The Telegraph had this week with Dr. Anthony Fauci. He is the leading U.S. authority on COVID-19 and past spokesperson about it in the Trump administration until Trump sidelined him in the closing months of Trump’s very failed presidency. Fauci related concerning President Trump, “My influence with him diminished when he decided to essentially act like there was no outbreak [of COVID-19] and focus on reelection and opening the economy. That’s when he said, ‘It’s going to go away, it’s magical, don’t worry about it.'” Fauci said that’s when “my direct influence on him was negligible.” Concerning their relationship he added, “it became more conflictual than productive.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the Director of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for over forty years. It is a branch of the National Institutes of Health, which is directed by Dr. Francis Collins of genome fame. Both men are highly respected by their peers. Yet a large multitude of Americans, many of whom are influenced by conspiracy theories, are trashing these two men as scientists, especially Dr. Fauci.
IMO, so many older, white Americans, especially men like me, are looking pretty stupid these days. And it has a lot to do with ex-President Donald Trump. He had said in a phone call with campaign staffers in October that Fauci was “a disaster.” Weeks later, Trump said publicly in a political rally in Florida that he was considering firing Fauci after the election.
Well, Trump has proved to be the disaster, and he is the one who got fired. Plus, he is the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice and accused by the House of committing “incitement to insurrection.” If it is ever proved true in an actual trial with witnesses, as Senator Mitch McConnell said right after the Senate voted to acquit him, Donald Trump could still face civil or perhaps criminal lawsuits about this if not an investigation by Congress about it.
Fauci also revealed in this interview concerning Trump and the pandemic, “When it became clear that in order to maintain my integrity and to get the right message I had to publicly disagree with him, he did things, or allowed things to happen, that were terrible.” Fauci added that President Trump “was putting as much stock in anecdotal things that turned out not to be true as he was in what scientists like myself were saying.” That’s why I’ve said multiple times that not only was President Donald Trump not a “stable genius,” as he said publicly on multiple occasions, he is “dumber than a stick.” I say this because he has it coming for being so obnoxiously arrogant.
Fauci further lamented, “That caused unnecessary and uncomfortable conflict where I had to essentially correct what he was saying and put me at great odds with his people.” Yeah, Trump gathered aides around him who either eventually left or he fired, and the ones who remained were like him–having crazy notions about this coronavirus and entertaining conspiracy theories.
Dr. Fauci is now President Joe Biden’s foremost advisor on this pandemic. So, I believe we are finally in good hands with the both of them.
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