Although President Donald Trump has been consistently incompetent in his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, the president’s team has recently been trying to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who has served on the White House’s Coronavirus response task force and has repeatedly tried to sound alarms about the progression of the outbreak. The White House went so far that they recently leaked a document to media outlets outlining occasions on which they tried to depict Fauci as having been in the wrong, although they brazenly misrepresented some of his initial remarks. At a press conference this week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) — whose state has largely gotten their Coronavirus outbreak under control — harshly criticized Trump for his ignorant belligerence.
He said:
‘Now the President is attacking science. What a surprise! No surprise. He’s been attacking science from day one. The denial of reality was to deny science, and he’s done that from day one. At the end of the day, science trumps politics. Politics does not trump science.’
Watch his comments below:
#BREAKING: Cuomo defends Fauci: "Now the President is attacking science. What a surprise! No surprise. He's been attacking science from Day One." pic.twitter.com/oAOo8ls3jV
— The Hill (@thehill) July 13, 2020
An example from ABC aptly symbolizes the brazen hollowness of the president’s allies’ campaign to discredit Fauci. The document that the Trump team used to try and discredit Fauci points out that during an appearance on the Today show in February, Fauci said that “at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis,” but that’s simply not the entirety of what he said — at all. He very clearly acknowledged the fact that the situation could rapidly change.
As he put it:
‘Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread.’
Compare that to the consistent nonsense from the president, who in late February claimed that concern over the virus was a “hoax.” It wasn’t then, and it’s not now, but Trump wasted valuable time that he could have used developing an effective national response to the pandemic. Instead, he tweeted.
