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In an interview on Mar 25 2021, Trump said “If you really look, I didn’t listen to him too much because I was doing the opposite of what he was saying.” He was referring to Dr. Fauci, saying that the Doctor was only praised because he disagreed with Trump, and that Trump disdained his advice. This was in the context of Fauci being political and clearly in Trump’s opinion, not good at his job.
This is supremely inconsistent and idiotic, in other words archetypically Trump. The Trump administration put politics over every other possible priority, and certainly over American lives during the Covid crisis. So to claim someone else played politics is rampant hypocrisy. And it is impossible to imagine anyone worse at doing their job than Trump.
But beyond Trump’s disdain, dislike and rampant jealousy of Fauci is the broader question of Dr. Fauci’s track record during the Covid crisis. Over 500,000 people lost their lives, so it’s impossible to say this was handled well. But who deserves the blame is a more difficult question.
Much is made, including by Trump, of the Mar 8 2020 quote saying the general public didn’t have to wear masks. A Reuters fact check supplies the context that the government was afraid of panic buying and a shortage of masks for medical professionals who had the most urgent need for masks. This quote therefore was not incompetence, not ignorance…
