Appearing on Washington D.C.-area radio station WMAL’s Morning on the Mall on Tuesday, White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci condemned the media for trying to “pit” him against President Trump in the midst of the pandemic.
“It seems like increasingly a bunch of the questions from the media are designed to create a rift between you and the President of the United States, or at least to sort of emphasize differences of opinion in a way that, you know, creates distance between you and the President,” co-host Vince Coglianese observed during the interview. He asked Dr. Fauci, “Are you sensing that as the media continually asks you questions about the differences you have with him?”
Listen to the full interview here, the media discussion occurs at the 6:00 minute mark:
“That is really unfortunate. I would wish that, that would stop,” Fauci responded. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases then explained what was really going on behind the scenes:
Because we have a much bigger problem here than trying to point out differences. There are really fundamentally, at the core, when you look at things, there are not differences. The President has listened to what I have said and what the other people on the task force have said. When I’ve made recommendations, he’s taken them. He’s never countered or overridden me.
He concluded his comments by furthering lecturing the press corps: “The idea of just pitting one against the other is just not helpful. I wish that would stop. We’d look ahead at the challenge we have, to pull together to get over this thing.”
Clearly the media ignored that advice, given that Tuesday’s network evening newscasts all made a concerted effort to drive a wedge between the President and the task force.
In a Boston Globe article on Monday, liberal columnist Kevin Cullen even jested that “In Order to Save Dr. Fauci, We Must Destroy Him.” The piece argued that, “Fauci’s calm, reassuring competence in response to the coronavirus pandemic is placing him at serious risk of hearing the words that made his boss famous: You’re fired.”
In the media quest to attack Trump, it doesn’t matter who is collateral damage, even if it’s the person most needed during this global medical crisis.
Here is a transcript of the March 24 exchange with Dr. Fauci on WMAL:
6:30 AM ET
(...)
VINCE COGLIANESE: Dr. Fauci, I want to ask you about something that I’ve seen transpiring over the past couple days, especially as it relates to you. It seems like increasingly a bunch of the questions from the media are designed to create a rift between you and the President of the United States, or at least to sort of emphasize differences of opinion in a way that, you know, creates distance between you and the President. Are you sensing that as the media continually asks you questions about the differences you have with him?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: That is really unfortunate. I would wish that, that would stop. Because we have a much bigger problem here than trying to point out differences. There are really fundamentally, at the core, when you look at things, there are not differences. The President has listened to what I have said and what the other people on the task force have said. When I’ve made recommendations, he’s taken them. He’s never countered or overridden me. The idea of just pitting one against the other is just not helpful. I wish that would stop. We’d look ahead at the challenge we have, to pull together to get over this thing.
(...)
