“Genghis Don” Ready Invoke His One-man Rule
(Photo
snagged from The Spectator here)
Several parts to today’s story: Here from NY
Times and this quick update on the
Virus Stimulus Bill moving ever so
slowly in Congress from
CNBC.
When Trump knows that he has
more to gain than to lose by keeping an adviser, he has resisted impulses to
fight back against apparent criticism, sometimes for months-long interludes. One example was when he
wanted to fire the White House counsel, Don McGahn in 2017 and early 2018.
Another was Jeff Sessions, the former AG. Trump eventually fired both when he
felt the danger in doing so had passed.
So far, the president appears to be making the same calculation with
Dr. Fauci, who was not on the briefing room podium on Monday evening.
When asked why, Trump said he had just been with Dr. Fauci for “a long
time” at a task force meeting. Officials, asked about the doctor’s absence,
repeated that they were rotating officials who appear at the briefings. “He’s a good man,” Trump said.
Still, the president has
resisted portraying the virus as the kind of threat described by Dr. Fauci and
other public health experts. In his effort to create a positive vision of a
future where the virus is less of a danger, critics have accused Trump of
giving false hope. Trump is hot and cold too on praising or blasting states for the actions - case in point the nastiness in this short video clip (about 1-minute):
His statement from Biden 2020 short video
Dr. Fauci and the president
have publicly disagreed on how long it will take for a coronavirus vaccine to
become available and whether an anti-malaria drug, chloroquine, could help
those with an acute form of the virus. Dr. Fauci has made clear that he does
not think the drug necessarily holds the potential that Trump says it does.
In an interview with Science
Magazine, Dr. Fauci responded to a question about how he had managed to not get
fired by saying that, to Trump’s credit: “Even
though we disagree on some things, he listens. He goes his own way. He has his
own style. But on substantive issues, he does listen to what I say.”
Fauci also said there was a
limit to what he could do when Trump makes false statements, as he often does
during the briefings saying: “I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said
it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.”
Then in an interview with
CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday (March 22) Fauci played down the idea that
there was a divide between him and the president saying in part: “There isn’t fundamentally a difference there.”
He then added: “The president has heard, as we all have
heard, what are what I call anecdotal reports that certain drugs work. So what
he was trying to do and express was the hope that if they might work, let’s try
and push their usage. I, on the other side, have said I’m not disagreeing with
the fact anecdotally they might work, but my job is to prove definitively from
a scientific standpoint that they do work. So I was taking a purely medical,
scientific standpoint, and the president was trying to bring hope to the people.”
Dr. Fauci came to his current
role in 1984 just as the AIDS epidemic was exploding and President Reagan was
paying it little attention. He and C. Everett Koop, the surgeon general at the
time, were widely credited with spurring the Reagan administration to action
against AIDS, a fact that underscores Dr. Fauci’s ability to negotiate
difficult politics.
He has recognized Trump’s need for praise; in the president’s presence
and with audiences that are friendly to him, Dr. Fauci has been complimentary.
He told the radio host Mark Levin on Fox News of the administration’s
response to the virus: “I can’t imagine
that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”
Dr. Fauci is very savvy not
just about the inner workings of the government but about the news media that
covers it. When VP Pence took over the coronavirus task force, his advisers
wanted to put a 24-hour pause on interviews that administration officials were
giving as they assessed where the administration was after a chaotic few weeks.
They were initially fine with Dr. Fauci’s appearances, meeting with him before
interviews to get a sense of what he planned to say.
My 2 cents: It is clear to me and most others that Trump wants to get
rid of Dr. Fauci or at least keep him out of the limelight that Trump so desperately
needs on a daily basis.
Dr. Fauci has held his job for 36 years and getting rid of him now would
in my view doom Trump and rightly so, and the public should, if Trump moves
that way, demand that the GOP remove Trump anyway possible for as I said here: Trump
is a “Clear and Present Danger” to us all – and he proves that now every
single day during this most-serious health crisis ever in our lifetime.
Clearly
as I have said before: “Trump is not the
cause of this virus, but he lagged for nearly two months before taking strong
positive action and now he still flutters on what to further do – except with
more his famous empty words, but without much massive deeds, and certainly not from
any scientific medical point of view, which he regularly denies as being
smarter than anyone else.”
There is a legal process to get rid of Trump – yes, that is true, and if
he were to fire Dr. Fauci, then that should seal the deal and put up a solid united
front to get rid of Trump post haste for the good of the country and indeed for
all mankind, too.
Why do I say that? To put it simply: Trump is incorrigible.
FYI and somewhat related to all this is an excellent piece about Trump from the Washington
Post (June 2016). A historical must read.
Thanks for stopping by.
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