ROFL! Trump made all the final decisions, Fauci was only an advisor. An advisor that Trump claims in multiple interviews he constantly overruled.
I suspect that Trump had good cause to believe that the media was going to successfully continue to whip up hysteria over Covid, because, after all, as you will recall, the majority of idiots in this country were so easily whipped up into hysteria in the place.
Trump probably foresaw losing—outright losing, with no fraud necessary—had there been no hope of a vaccine being put out there.
Then, once the demonrats were in power, the death vaxx would suddenly appear one day and be forced on everyone.
So, I don’t think Trump thought there was a way out of this mess without millions dying; he was just trying to minimize how many millions.