“.... Why would President Trump have assumed at the start that Fauci was a corrupt, venial mountebank? ....”
Gauci’s hyperventilating & fraudulent public performances over AIDS. Where he tried to convince everyone, it was going to break out into the heterosexual community! Now I don’t expect Trump to do his own research on people, but you would think his staff would! A 15-minute Internet search would have turn up Fauci’s over-the-top performances and labeled him as the last person you would want making public appearances and statements with Trump! It might have even triggered some deeper research where it would be shown he was deeply compromised with conflict-of-interest violations unless somehow NIH employees are exempt.
I am a physician and I didn’t know about Fauci. It was only when I watched the daily conferences that I got visions of snake oil and researched Fauci, mRna, the off-label drugs, mask use etc. I was livid.
But it didn’t take me 15 min of research. It took hours on several days and I have research experience. I had the time and expertise to do that. Trump is used to getting experts on projects tailored to the specific challenges, interrogating them and letting them work on details. In the business world it is much clearer who has expertise.
Fauci had every award and honor in his field. It was and probably is a closed group of corrupt sociopathic venial posers. NIH is completely compromised. When Trump got suspicious he got Navarro involved and sidelined Fauci. However much damage had already been done.
Why would Trump’s staff have thought to vet Fauci with his credentials. Who was supposed to second guess him at the onset of the crisis. They told Trump that the America could be decimated and he believed that he needed to work from the premise of avoiding worst case.