Don’t Buy Media’s “Trump Vs Dr Fauci” Narrative

Becca Lower reporting on Dana Loesch for RedState

On her weekly radio program Monday, host Dana Loesch pushed back against a media narrative involving President Trump and White House Coronavirus Task Force member, Dr. Anthony Fauci, which has arisen in recent days.

During the the first hour of the show. Loesch echoed the frustration many Americans have felt about the focus being taken off the nation’s recovery.

She said, in part:

This is what tires me, I think, more than anything: the constant insistence on politicizing this…. You want to know exactly what’s going to happen — when the economy is going to re-open and what that’s going to look like. Are there going to be social distancing techniques incorporated as a part of that? What all does that entail? And so, I wish that was what we were talking about more, than what the media is trying to set up as it relates to Dr. Fauci.

Maybe you’ve seen some of these headlines going around. Basically, it’s “Fauci vs. Trump.” They’re really trying hard to pit him against Trump. And they’ve really been trying to make it as thought Fauci thinks that Trump is some kind of blockhead. They’re trying to blame this on the President. They’re really eager to try to use Fauci as a cudgel to do this. They keep coming back to him. They keep going down all these avenues, but they keep coming back to Fauci.

And he hasn’t played into that…. We’ve played so many soundbites, so many interviews he has given, where he has not played into that. Many times, he’s even chastised reporters — I remember, personally, two separate occasions, because I was watching it live…. He corrected them. Because they immediately tried to position him against Trump. And he has always said, “Well, the President listens to me. When I counsel him, he listens to me.”

Loesch, a former, senior editor at Breitbart News, went on to warn listeners that the media – both on the left and the right – depend on us as news consumers to be too busy to follow up — especially when checking into facts will destroy what they’ve implied in a headline.

And she’s 100 percent right. That’s how they get their narratives to stand up, even if they’re made out of tissue paper.

RedState’s Sister Toldjah picks up the story up from there, writing about a sit-down Fauci did with CNN this weekend:

[Dr. Fauci] stated that “no one is going to deny that” after CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Fauci if more lives could have been saved had the stay at home orders started sooner. During the segment, he also told Tapper that sometimes recommendations are made to do things and are accepted, and other times they are not accepted.

Then she showed a big moment from today’s White House press conference literally from every angle.

As ST wrote, “the reporter point-blank asks Fauci if he was defending Trump ‘voluntarily.’ Fauci’s answer, and the look on his face after, was gold.”….”[H]e told her ‘everything I do is voluntarily. Please, don’t even imply that.’”

There goes that narrative.