Tag: Anthony Fauci

Trump says he has a ‘very good relationship’ with Fauci amid White House criticism

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday said he has a “very good relationship” with Dr. Anthony Fauci, downplaying the existence of a rift with the government’s top infectious diseases expert even as multiple White House aides openly criticize the doctor.

“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci. I’ve had for a long time, right from the beginning,” Trump told reporters at a White House event meant to highlight positive actions by police. “I find him to be a very nice person. I don’t always agree with him.”

“I get along with him very well. I like him, personally,” Trump added. Continue reading.

Trump’s attacks on Fauci and other experts reinforce that he’d rather Americans be confused than concerned

Washington Post logoIt’s not unusual that President Trump and his team should try to attack or undercut someone. Trump likes to call himself a counterpuncher, which is true only in the sense that he also gets to pick what counts as a punch. So we’ve seen a by-now-uncountable number of beefs, disputes and conflicts between Trump and everyone from random Americans to former confidantes.

It’s also not entirely unusual that Trump would attack someone over whom he has authority within the government. There are enough former administration officials who have been the targets of abuse by Trump after leaving government service that they could form a small basketball league. But there are also a handful who were attacked while still working in his administration: members of the FBI, his former attorney general.

What’s unusual about the White House’s efforts to undermine Anthony S. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading voice on the novel coronavirus pandemic, is that the only way in which Fauci has undercut the president is by being honest about the moment. Continue reading.

White House goes public with attacks on Fauci

The Hill logoTensions between the White House and Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, are spilling into the open as officials openly attack the doctor for his public health advice during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Fauci’s advice has often run contrary to President Trump’s views, and the attacks on Fauci have begun to look like a traditional negative political campaign against an opponent. Yet this time, the opponent is a public health expert and career civil servant working within the administration. 

Dan Scavino, deputy chief of staff for communications, shared a cartoon on his Facebook page late Sunday that depicted Fauci as a faucet flushing the U.S. economy down the drain with overzealous health guidance to slow the spread of the pandemic. Continue reading.

Latest White House Assault On Fauci Echoes Right-Wing Media Attacks

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Trump White House is seeking to minimize the public profile of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and even to discredit his position with the public over the coronavirus pandemic.

The Post reported: “A White House official released a statement saying that ‘several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things’ and included a lengthy list of the scientist’s comments from early in the outbreak.”

This echoes what right-wing media figures have been saying in recent days. Continue reading.

Fauci is sidelined by the White House as he steps up blunt talk on pandemic

Washington Post logoTrump hasn’t consulted with the scientist since early June, telling Hannity ‘he’s ‘a nice man but he’s made a lot of mistakes.’

For months, Anthony S. Fauci has played a lead role in America’s coronavirus pandemic, as a diminutive, Brooklyn-accented narrator who has assessed the risk and issued increasingly blunt warnings as the nation’s response has gone badly awry.

But as the Trump administration has strayed from the advice of many of its scientists and public health experts, the White House has moved to sideline Fauci, scuttled some of his planned TV appearances and largely kept him out of the Oval Office for more than a month even as coronavirus infections surge in large swaths of the country.

In recent days, the 79-year-old scientist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has found himself directly in the president’s crosshairs. During a Fox News interview Thursday with Sean Hannity, Trump said Fauci “is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.” And when Greta Van Susteren asked him last week about Fauci’s assessment that the country was not in a good place, Trump said flatly: “I disagree with him.” Continue reading.

Fauci warns against ‘false complacency’ on COVID-19

The Hill logoAnthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned Tuesday the U.S. should not fall into “false complacency” because COVID-19 death rates have dropped, noting the virus can cause other severe health outcomes.

“It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” Fauci said Tuesday during a livestreamed press conference hosted by Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.)

“There’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus, don’t get yourself into a false complacency,” he added.   Continue reading.

Live updates: Fauci calls focus on lower coronavirus death rate, touted by Trump, ‘a false narrative’

Washington Post logoThe nation’s top infectious-disease expert on Tuesday called recent focus on the coronavirus’s decreasing mortality rate in the United States a “false narrative,” while President Trump continued to tout those numbers on Twitter.

“It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” said Anthony S. Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, during a news conference. He said that the country has gotten better at treating people and that the average age of virus patients is dropping.

Trump has called “99 percent” of coronavirus cases “totally harmless,” contradicting health experts, even as rising new infections and hospitalizations in many states prompt some alarmed officials to roll back reopening. Continue reading.

Fauci Says U.S. Could Reach 100,000 Virus Cases a Day as Warnings Grow Darker

New York Times logoThe government’s top infectious disease expert told a Senate panel that bars needed to be closed, and the Fed chairman cautioned that “a full recovery is unlikely” until safety is restored.

WASHINGTON — The government’s top infectious disease expert said on Tuesday that the rate of new coronavirus infections could more than double to 100,000 a day if current outbreaks were not contained, warning that the virus’s march across the South and the West “puts the entire country at risk.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, offered the grim prediction while testifying on Capitol Hill, telling senators that no region of the country is safe from the virus’s resurgence. The number of new cases in the United States has shot up by 80 percent in the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database, with new hot spots flaring far from the Sun Belt epicenters.

“I can’t make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, I will guarantee you that,” Dr. Fauci said, “because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable.” Continue reading.

Coronavirus responses highlight how humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

Bemoaning uneven individual and state compliance with public health recommendations, top U.S. COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci recently blamed the country’s ineffective pandemic response on an American “anti-science bias.” He called this bias “inconceivable,” because “science is truth.” Fauci compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to “anti-vaxxers” in their “amazing” refusal to listen to science.

It is Fauci’s profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he’s overlooking the well-established science of “anti-science bias,” or science denial.

Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own information universes. Continue reading.

Fauci gives Congress COVID-19 warning

The Hill logoAnthony Fauci, the administration’s top infectious disease doctor, told a House panel on Tuesday that rising U.S. cases of COVID-19 are “disturbing” as new signs emerged of the United States falling further behind other countries in containing the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus is surging in more than half the country, and states like Florida, Texas and Arizona are setting records of new cases almost daily.

Yet states are continuing to push forward with reopening businesses and lifting restrictions, and Fauci warned that without the ability to fully identify, isolate and trace the contacts of the infected individuals, the situation could worsen. Continue reading.