As mainstream media insists on painting a narrative of US President Donald Trump standing in opposition to his health advisers, senior immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci slammed outlets for unhelpfully ‘pitting’ him against his boss.
“I would wish that that would stop, because we have a much bigger problem here than trying to point out differences,” Fauci told WMAL’s ‘Mornings on the Mall’ on Tuesday about media reports of him disagreeing with the president’s coronavirus response.
Following a Monday press conference where Trump insisted various lockdowns in response to the disease should end in the next few weeks rather than months, as some health experts have recommended, MSM reports immediately turned out the narrative that the president was going against the wishes of his medical experts – including Fauci, who is on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
“The president has listened to what I have said and to what the other people on the task force have said, when I have made recommendations he has taken them, he’s never countered or overridden me, the idea of just pitting one against the other is just not helpful,” Fauci said of Trump.
DR. FAUCI: "No, I don't consider the balancing act… the president has the awesome responsibility of considering every aspect of this. I just give public health advice completely clean, unconnected with anything else. He has to factor in other things."https://t.co/BbbG170J3p
“Please listen to Dr. Fauci,” Tablet magazine writer Yair Rosenberg tweeted in reaction to the doctor’s comments, warning that media outlets’ efforts to create friction between Fauci and Trump could do serious damage to coronavirus response efforts by possibly getting the doctor fired.
Please listen to Dr. Fauci. Media efforts to pit him and Trump against each other or corner him into criticizing Trump may be good for retweets and clicks, but will be disastrous for the country if they get him fired. There are bigger stakes and journalists shouldn't forget them. https://t.co/u03CKsm9SM
Despite Fauci’s words, mainstream media has pushedhard to convince the public that Trump’s efforts to move quickly through lockdowns is against the wishes of Fauci, who has admitted to differences with Trump in style but not substance.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo went further than most in the media with his Fauci-versus-Trump take, saying on his program on Monday that Fauci is facing something much worse than the coronavirus: the president.
“Do you know what’s more dangerous than Covid?” Cuomo asked his audience. “Telling the truth about Trump as a member of the executive branch. No one survives that.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci gives conscious and comfort and fact to this country, says @ChrisCuomo.
"I don't see how we get through this any better or faster without Tony Fauci present and up front," he adds. pic.twitter.com/wXLT2LDlk0
