Trump Reposts Tweet, 'Time to #FireFauci'.
I would like to see conservatives answer this question - do you think that Trump firing or silencing Fauci would be acceptable to the majority of people in the United States?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The president retweeted a post calling for the government's top infectious disease specialist to be fired after the doctor acknowledged that shutting down the country earlier could have saved lives.
WASHINGTON -- President Trump publicly signaled his frustration on Sunday with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government's top infectious disease expert, after the doctor said more lives could have been saved from the coronavirus if the country had been shut down earlier.
Mr. Trump reposted a Twitter message that said ''Time to #FireFauci'' as he rejected criticism of his slow initial response to the pandemic that has now killed more than 22,000 people in the United States. The president privately has been irritated at times with Dr. Fauci, but the Twitter post was the most explicit he has been in letting that show publicly.
The message Mr. Trump retweeted came from a former Republican congressional candidate. ''Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives,'' said the tweet by DeAnna Lorraine, who got less than 2 percent of the vote in an open primary against Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month. ''Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US at large. Time to #Fire Fauci.''
In reposting the message, Mr. Trump added: ''Sorry Fake News, it's all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.''
The tweet came amid a flurry of messages blasted out by the president on Sunday defending his handling of the coronavirus, which has come under sharp criticism, and pointing the finger instead at China, the World Health Organization, President Barack Obama, the nation's governors, Congress, Democrats generally and the news media.
Mr. Trump did not ''ban China,'' but he did block foreign nationals who had been in China in the past 14 days from coming into the United States starting on Feb. 2. Despite the policy, 40,000 Americans and other authorized travelers have still come into the country from China since then.
Dr. Fauci and other public health experts were initially skeptical that the China travel restrictions would be useful when the president was first considering them, but then changed their minds and told Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, on the morning of Jan. 30 that they supported them.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly pointed back to those travel limits to defend his handling of the pandemic, but experts have said the limits were useful mainly to buy time that the administration did not then use to ramp up widespread testing and impose social distancing policies before infections could begin growing exponentially.
By the third week of February, advisers had drafted a list of measures they believed would soon be necessary, like school closures, sports and concert cancellations and stay-at-home orders, but the president did not embrace them until mid-March.
Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said on Sunday that earlier imposition of such policies would have made a difference.
''I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives,'' he said on ''State of the Union'' on CNN. ''Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you're right. Obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down.''
Dr. Fauci's comments, and the president's pushback, come at a critical time as Mr. Trump wrestles with how fast to begin reopening the country. Public health experts like Dr. Fauci have urged caution about resuming normal life too soon for fear of instigating another wave of illness and death, while the president's economic advisers and others are anxious to restart businesses at a time when more than 16 million Americans have been put out of work.
Dr. Fauci and the president have publicly disagreed on several issues, including how long it will take to develop a vaccine and the president's aggressive promotion of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, whose effects are unproven against the coronavirus. At a coronavirus task force briefing last week, Mr. Trump stopped Dr. Fauci from answering a question on the drug.
Dr. Fauci has become a celebrated figure among much of the public, which trusts him far more than Mr. Trump, according to polls. A Quinnipiac University survey last week found that 78 percent of Americans approved of Dr. Fauci's handling of the crisis compared with 46 percent who approved of the president's response. That has prompted resentment among other government officials, some of whom have privately criticized Dr. Fauci for playing to the media and not always sending consistent messages.
Mr. Trump spent much of Easter Sunday deflecting criticism and finding other targets. ''If the Fake News Opposition Party is pushing, with all their might, the fact that President Trump 'ignored early warnings about the threat,' then why did Media & Dems viciously criticize me when I instituted a Travel Ban on China?'' he wrote. ''They said 'early & not necessary.' Corrupt Media!''
He cited a businessman in saying that ''Congress was too distracted by the (phony) Impeachment Witch Hunt when they should have been investigating CoronaVirus when it first appeared in China.'' He blamed states for not being ready. ''Governors, get your states testing programs & apparatus perfected,'' he wrote. ''Be ready, big things are happening. No excuses!''
He retweeted a message saying that the World Health Organization ''enabled China's obfuscation on coronavirus, and that it could have been containable had Beijing not lied to the world.'' He also retweeted a post from a friendly conservative television outlet saying that the ''Obama admin. repeatedly cut PPE stockpile,'' referring to personal protective equipment, and ''failed to replenish'' it.
The president seemed particularly upset about a New York Times article documenting the administration's slow response to the virus. ''The @nytimes story is a Fake, just like the 'paper' itself,'' he wrote Sunday night, denying that Mr. Azar warned him ''until later'' and dismissing an early memo by another adviser, Peter Navarro, who warned of the prospect of 500,000 deaths. ''Fake News!''
He did not explain why, if he thought the stockpile was inadequate, he did nothing in his three years in office to replenish it. And in none of his messages did he say why he waited to recommend social distancing measures that experts have credited with helping to stem the spread of the virus.
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You have this scientist that the majority of Americans feel is giving them accurate and needed information, vs someone (Trump) who most people feel regularly does not tell the truth.
I dont see the upside for Trump in getting rid of Fauci. Actually, it sounds more like a nail in Trump's political coffin.
I think Fauci has done his best to predict the worst case scenarios, in order to frighten the people into submitting to draconian measures to contain the spread of the virus, without giving the slightest regard as to how it would affect peoples jobs and lives. He has given conflicting advice and information so often that I have little faith in what he says. The actual numbers of cases and fatalities have yet again fallen below that predicted by the models. The economic fallout has been a separate disaster that will soon have to be turned around by applying "common sense" preventives measures. This will work best if done at the metro level by individual companies and businesses directors and managers, instead of obeying some government directive from the Fed. I put much more trust in what Dr Brix has to say
Almost complete agreement.
I lost faith in Birx when she tried to state that the USA is the only country telling the truth.
The truth would include the thousands of nursing home deaths positively ID'd as COVID19
and of course the Pentagon ordered a blackout of COVID19 information on 03/31/2020, so we don't know those totals either.
Well we won't find out for sure for many months (if ever) what the breakdown is by race and co morbidity.
Anecdotally you would think that the majority are older grand parents and great grand parents, with typical old age related health issues, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancers, etc.
But there are many cases of healthy young people getting it and succumbing rather quickly.
The only reason Trump wants him gone is because he was about to tell some truth at a PC but Trump cut the reporter off, afraid that Fauci would contradict him. That is something that doesn't set well for a narcissist with a Hindenburg sized ego.
Well, to the sadness of liberals, Trump will not fire Fauci and still gives him his full support...
"This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci. The President’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite history," White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement.
"It was Democrats and the media who ignored Coronavirus choosing to focus on impeachment instead, and when they finally did comment on the virus it was to attack President Trump for taking the bold decisive action to save American lives by cutting off travel from China and from Europe. Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump."
Sorry, libs, but I guess it's time to hurry and make up more BS. We know you can do it. You've done it constantly for almost 4 years.
huh?
He retweeted what a former republican candidate for Congress tweeted. How is that the media spinning stuff?
I don't know. Maybe you should ask the person who put out the statement.
The facts remain, however, that the media has been trying to put a wedge between Trump and Fauci for weeks now. They completely hate it when someone says they enjoy working with Trump, so their first instinct is to try and destroy that relationship.
We al know that if Trump put Fauci on the sidelines, that would give the media a reason to whine that Trump is not listening to his experts, even though Fauci and Birx are not the only "experts" that are on his response team, even though they are the ones we see the most.
don't backtrack
No backtrack. Trump did not retweet something that simply only said Fire Fauci. There was a whole article that preceded the hashtag. The hashtag was at the very end of the article.
To be honest, I don't care if he fires him or not. There are many many more experts out there that would love to be on Trump's response team that does not have contradicting statements over the past couple of months.
The left is constantly looking to blame Trump on something...anything.
I know he didn't and there was not a whole article preceeding it. It was one loser congress candidate criticizing Dr Fauci. If trmp thinks Dr F is doing a good job, then why retweet that message?
And we don't have to constantly look for something to blame on him. He fucks up every day just by getting out of bed
So you agree it was not simply a hashtag Trump retweeted. I guess it's legitimate to call a Republican candidate a loser when their opponent is Pelosi and the district is 99 percent lunatic left.
I believe Trump is a little aggravated that Fauci has said contradicting things over the past couple of months, anyone would be, but I think he trusts his advice and knows he will not give something that will harm the country.
Very very bad case of TDS. I hope you get over it in January 2025 when Trump leaves office after his second term is complete.
She lost didn't she? Would you call her a winner?
Insult me all you like, but I'm different meds these days so I don't bloody care
Am I supposed to sling insults back? Is that why you're here?
Maybe you need to reread the comment...
"I guess it's legitimate to call a Republican candidate a loser when their opponent is Pelosi and the district is 99 percent lunatic left".
No way in hell a Republican will win in a district where 99 percent of the population is made up of the lunatic left.
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How many times has the media chatter been right when donald did fire someone....
Don't know...don't care. I didn't put out the statement.
Yes, it is time to consider firing Dr. Anthony Fauci. Not because of anything Dr. Fauci has done. The reason to consider firing Dr. Fauci is because the news media is attempting to use Fauci in a political manner to undermine the government's pandemic response.
News organizations are turning Dr. Fauci into a political distraction and hampering Dr. Fauci's ability to do his job. If Dr. Fauci can't do his job then there isn't any point in keeping him around.
He is one of two people that the administration will allow to talk to CNN.
Yes, Trump has not muzzled Anthony Fauci. That alone should indicate a degree of trust. And I suggest it also indicates a degree of respect.
If the news organizations are going to use Dr. Fauci in a political manner then Trump will also use Dr. Fauci in a political manner. The #FireFauci tag isn't directed toward Dr. Fauci, it's aimed at news organizations.
News organizations politicizing Dr. Fauci is hampering Fauci's ability to do his job.
Par for the course Imo. We all know a lot of people can and will politicize every thing.
Part of his job is to get info out to the masses. I think for the most part he has tried to stick to known facts.
Well, this political morsel of cheesy whine is not officially dead.
Dr. Fauci addressed Jake Tapper's political stunt during today's briefing. But Dr. Fauci committed the ultimate heresy by unequivocally stating that President Trump has listened to his expert advice and followed his expert advice.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has now placed himself at odds with the news media. And that is unforgivable.
like a glove
Trump is so low down snake farts blow dust in his face!
I'll never understand why any of this plays out publicly. Just have a conversation and get over it.
I would hope that few would find it to be a good move, but partisan thinking often defies reason.
Indeedy!
At his press briefing today, one of the reporters asked Trump why would he (re)tweet "Time To Fire Fauci".
Trumps reply was in any objective sense, babbling. He mumbled something about how all he had done was put something on twitter that he had seen someone else tweet. Basically he had no answer for why he retweeted something that called for Fauci to be fired.
This is the president of the United States, and this level of brazen nonsense should never be acceptable.
Too many people are blase about Trump.
“I would like to see conservatives answer this question - do you think that Trump firing or silencing Fauci would be acceptable to the majority of people in the United States? ”
Well I’m somewhat conservative leaning I suppose and my answer to that would be probably not. And at this point I don’t think Trump is headed in that direction despite the retweet that has some folks knickers in a twist. Trump addressed that silly retweet saying it was ”just someone else's opinion” and later told reporters, recorded on C-Span:
"I'm not firing him...I like him. I think he's terrific..Not everybody's happy with Anthony. Not everybody is happy with everybody. "
As far Fauci and his comments and relationship with the president, Fauci himself indicated that the press has been misconstruing his comments and that the President has followed his recommendations at every step as this whole situation has developed.
Here is Fauci explaining that whole issue yesterday and stating that Trump has followed every recommendation on mitigation measures when they were suggested by his experts . Please watch the whole video and listen carefully to what he said, especially how he handled the dumbass reporter at the end who asked if he was being pressured to clarify his previous statements. This after he just explained how his previous statements are being misconstrued by the media.
So while this is another stupid tweet from Trump, I think it is being blown wildly out of proportion by some in the media, and Dr. Fauci himself agrees.
Because that will reassure the markets, fire the only guy anyone actually trusts in the administration when it comes to anything related to the crisis.