Posted on 04/25/2020 5:53:37 PM PDT by usafa92
WASHINGTON — Until this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci was a near-constant presence at the daily coronavirus task force briefings at the White House. As the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 35 years, his expertise on the global pandemic has been a reassuring force for millions of Americans concerned about how COVID-19 has uprooted their lives.
Of the roughly 50 press conferences on the health crisis so far, Fauci had only missed a handful. But now, for the first time since regular press conferences began on the topic, Fauci was only present for one of seven briefings this week.
While Fauci gave media interviews throughout the week, his absence at the podium Friday was notable given the president’s controversial remarks a day earlier about using light and disinfectants to possibly treat the deadly respiratory illness.
And though Fauci regularly shares his decades-long infectious disease knowledge publicly, one administration official suggested there’s a preference that Fauci do more of that behind closed doors so it doesn’t appear he’s on such a different page from the president.
“You are here in a certain role, you’ve got to give advice privately,” this official said.
Members of the president’s task force have taken notice of Fauci’s diminished public profile, as well. There is mounting frustration among some of them with Fauci, who has, at times, publicly contradicted President Trump. Adding to the tensions, some officials complain they feel caught off guard by some of Fauci’s media interviews.
When asked why he was only at the briefing once this week, an administration official tells NBC News that Fauci "does have other responsibilities at NIH. Just because he is not at the briefing does not mean he’s not actively involved in task force meetings and briefings."
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere was more direct, telling NBC News that "despite the media’s ridiculous efforts to somehow create distance between the president and his top health experts, it is simply fake news."
"President Trump has relied on and consulted with Dr. Adams, Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, and many others," Deere added, "as he has confronted this unforeseen, unprecedented crisis and put the full power of the federal government to work to slow the spread, save lives, and place this great country on a data-driven path to opening up again."
The most recent example of discord came on Thursday when an interview with “TIME” revealed the doctor had a dismal view of the country’s testing capability.
“We absolutely need to significantly ramp up, not only the number of tests but the capacity to actually perform them,” Fauci said. “I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that.”
When asked later in the day if he agreed with Fauci, the president said: “I don't agree with him on that, no, I think we're doing a great job on testing.”
On Wednesday, the only day Fauci joined for the briefing this week, he refuted the president’s assertion that coronavirus “may not come back at all” this year and, if it does, it would just be “embers” or “pockets.” Minutes later, Fauci took to the lectern to state definitively: “We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that.”
While Fauci has appeared on most Sunday shows through March and April, he did not appear last weekend and is not currently slated to be on any of the political programs in the coming days.
Given Fauci’s absence from the briefings this week, several of the president’s aides and allies have started to wonder what it means about their relationship. Officials close to the task force, however, insist Fauci’s role is seen as critical to the pandemic response and maintain his job is safe.
And, the decision to skip the briefings may be Fauci’s own, given that he called the sometimes two-hour, marathon events “really draining” recently. Aides also said Fauci is a regular attendee at the closed-door meetings that often take place right before the televised pressers.
Experts agree Fauci’s storied career in the industry means he seeks little praise and doesn’t need the president’s approval to perform his duties.
“If you’re somebody who aspires to have impact in public health as a physician or provider, you should look no further than Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx, which spans administrations,” said Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and global health policy expert who is an NBC News medical contributor. “I think at the end of the day, the president needs Fauci more than Fauci needs any of this.”
His job is considered the “ultimate balancing act,” according to Dr. Kavita Patel, also an NBC News contributor. Watching the president continue to ad-lib medical advice from the White House briefing room “has to be frustrating” for Fauci, whose day job entails research on a potential vaccine, but he is likely aware that the pandemic response will take months and months so he takes a longer view. “He is a runner, and I am sure part of this is viewing COVID-19 task force as a marathon not a sprint,” she said.
Besides the president and Vice President Pence, the only coronavirus task force member who has appeared at more briefings is coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx. Neither doctor attended Friday’s briefing, which was the shortest to date. And, in a first at these kinds of newsers, Trump and Pence took no questions.
White House officials provided no explanation for the abbreviated appearance and lack of medical professionals like Birx and Fauci.
Earlier this month, the president elevated a tweet that contained the hashtag “FireFauci.” Advisers close to both men denied that was ever under consideration and the two later said publicly they had a good relationship and will continue to work together.
Even so, the president does not have the direct authority to dismiss Fauci. The president could, in theory, direct Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to see to it that Fauci is fired. Azar would then have to direct the NIH head to oust Fauci. As a federal employee, Fauci can only be fired “for cause.”
If he were to be removed, however unlikely, it would cause “irreparable harm,” Gupta said.
Occasionally in recent weeks, when Fauci hasn’t been seen among the group of aides emerging from the bright blue doors of the West Wing to start the briefings, observers on social media have wondered aloud: “Where’s Fauci?”
The answer for most of this week, at least: no longer at the president’s side in the daily briefings.
Probably one more of his models failed, and he can’t deny the facts.
The guy is a soft-spoken, perverted leftist wrecking ball.
Isn’t he the one under investigation for helping fund the bio-lab in Wuhan which was the source of the Chinese Virus?
"Trust the Plan!"
Errrr….something.
He’s also, what, 79 or 80 years old? He may just be exhausted. And his voice is on its last legs.
Hopefully, this foretells the firing of Fascist Fauci.
The guy is a political snake.
Fauci and Birx, two of the most destructive humans in American history.
And here I was thinking Jeff Sessions did some serious damage. He did, but but nothing even close to Fauci and Birx.
FBI INVESTIGATION TARGETED DR. FAUCI BUT COMEY PULLED THE PLUG
Top U.S. scientist and research pioneer Dr. Judy Mikovits said she cooperated with the FBI during an investigation of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health, alleging Fauci was a workplace TYRANT who was under investigation for SWIPING scientific research, covering up TAINTED VACCINES, DOLING OUR LUCRATIVE FEDERAL GRANTS to feckless cronies and much more.
https://truepundit.com/fbi-investigation-targeted-dr-fauci-but-comey-pulled-the-plug/
I’ve wanted him and the “Scarf Queen” gone for about a
month now.
Hopefully that’s being implemented as we speak.
We’re all tired of hearing from Dr. Wetblanket.
Every single economic gain made by President Trump has been wiped out in next to no time, thanks to Fauci and Birx.
And its President Trump that let it happen.
agree fully. If fauci can only be fired for ‘cause’ from the NIH, then I say the cause is he’s completely conflicted on the vaccine push with gates. fauci is wicked and I hope trump sees it sooner than later.
Arrogant egotist. Every time he comes to the microphone I get sick to my stomach.
The other day I heard that Fauci (or his concerns) have the PATENT on the envelope protein of the HIV virus...
So I’m thinking Huh? I thought you couldn’t patent natural occurring items...???
GEEZE I didn’t notice didn’t miss him at all!!!
Anyone with intelligence has been following these briefings closely saw that everything changed dramatically on April 16
That is when instead of highlighting Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci for most of the thing, and talking about social distancing and ventilators Trump decided to change the subject to opening up America and how incredible our people had done and playing videos of Democrats praising him
It was on that date that neither Fauci Nor Birx even appeared ! and I knew that at that point we had this thing licked
Now we here we are 10 days later , and the good news just keeps pouring in !
the crisis in New York is over - and that’s really the only place it was even a crisis at all
No I believe are great and wonderful president ( who is smart as a whip ) knows exactly what he’s doing - and now he’s left it up to all 50 states and given a very conservative and slow three stage opening a process ; to watch and let America decide who they want to run their country more Republicans or Democrats
You’ll notice that today was the first day with no carabiner his press conference at all and Yesterdays was about 20 minutes with TRU basically repeated his main points that America is great America will get bigger and stronger very quickly and economy will revive and then you had some technical overview on how sunshine kills the virus is and then you had our wonderful vice president coming up and staying again how wonderful all of our teams that act together the federal government and the state governments
and they took ZERO !!! questions
And of course we know why after the media the day before tried to get out there and say that Trump told everybody to drink bleach !!!!!and just blatantly lied through their teeth for a whole days news cycle
I still here in Liberal talk radio out here in the bay area trying to assert that he said such a thing which is an utter and blatant lie of course
So I think wisely he’s decided there’s really no point for these things anymore - we’ve won !!! we’re just opening up American now ; and we’re gonna let that be the story for the next couple months
He’s thinking “ I’m going to step back now “.
brilliant move on his part
History books will write this completely correctly - and that our brilliant president completely rewrote the entire history book on how you react to a pandemic
What it be can be compared to his Barack Obama’s reaction to the 2009 pig flu epidemic - and the fact that he did nothing ; 60 million people got it ; 300,000 got hospitalized -13,000 died before he even declared anything
The fact will clearly be that nobody had ever in America EVER heard the term “social distancing”. 6 feet “. What a ventilator is or anything like that before March 2020
And the fact is he put Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx right out front who are very elegant at their subjective which they’re experts at and that alone was the most brilliant move that he made
He knew that the media could have absolutely no attack angle on either of these to fine professionals
All they could do was try to say that Trump was forcing them to say things or to try to find distance in between them and get them to argue with Trump
In conclusion we’ve won and I have one word VICTORY !!!
USA!
according to mikovits(sp), audio link above, fauci stole, on more than one occasion, other scientists discoveries
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