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Fauci says White House’s ‘bizarre’ efforts to discredit him hurt Trump, adds Peter Navarro is ‘in a world by himself’

  • July 15, 2020

“To the notion that there’s opposition research and that there’s Fauci versus the president, it couldn’t be further from the truth,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a press briefing Monday. “Dr. Fauci and the president have always had a very good working relationship.”

Trump said Monday that while “I don’t always agree with” Fauci, “we get along very well, I like him personally.”

Fauci also told The Atlantic he would not resign as a leader in the nation’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think the problem is too important for me to get into those kinds of thoughts and discussions. I just want to do my job. I’m really good at it. I think I can contribute. And I’m going to keep doing it,” Fauci said.

Still, Fauci acknowledged that “obviously, we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to almost reset this and say, ‘Okay, let’s stop this nonsense.'”

Fauci said he spoke Monday with Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, about the list of his prior remarks that was circulated by the White House.

“Ultimately, it hurts the president to do that. When the staff lets out something like that and the entire scientific and press community push back on it, it ultimately hurts the president,” Fauci told The Atlantic. “And I don’t really want to hurt the president. But that’s what’s happening. I told him I thought it was a big mistake. That doesn’t serve any good purpose for what we’re trying to do.”

Meadows did not apologize and said he didn’t know about the list, according to Fauci. But two officials told NBC News reported later Wednesday that Meadows advised White House staff to stop attacking Fauci.

Meadows “wasn’t happy” about the op-ed, one of the officials told NBC.

Other White House officials have recently taken shots at Fauci. Over the weekend, Trump’s close aide Dan Scavino reportedly shared a political cartoon mocking Fauci by portraying him as a faucet whose spout drips alarming messages about the pandemic — such as “Schools stay closed this fall!” and “Indefinite lockdown!” — that threaten to drown the economy.

“Sorry, Dr. Faucet! At least you know if I’m going to disagree with a colleague, such as yourself, it’s done publicly — and not cowardly, behind journalists with leaks,” Scavino wrote on Facebook alongside the post. “See you tomorrow!”

Navarro wrote in his USA Today article that Fauci “has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”

The trade advisor accuses Fauci of having “fought against the president’s courageous decision” in late January to restrict travel to the U.S. from China, and for downplaying the risk of a possible pandemic when the virus first started to emerge. 

“Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening,” Navarro wrote. Administration officials including Trump have recently pointed out that the mortality rate has not increased in line with the surge of cases currently being experienced in a number of Southern and Western states. “The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open,” Navarro wrote.

“So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution,” Navarro wrote.

This is developing news. Please check back for updates.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/15/white-house-tries-to-distance-trump-from-navarro-op-ed-ripping-fauci.html

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