Thursday, September 10, 2020

Dr. Fauci Just Put a Stake Through the Heart of the Woodward Story Against Trump



As I previously wrote, prepare for all kinds of Democratic smears/scandals to be thrown up against the wall in the final days now before the election as the Democrats try to empty their quiver with all that they might have against President Donald Trump.

They dropped something yesterday that was almost instantaneously shot down about Trump supposedly telling Bob Woodward that he tried to play down the coronavirus. But seen in context, it’s pretty clear that what he was trying to say was that he was trying to keep down panic. This was February 7th, before it was even known if there was any community spread, before even the first case was officially found in New York City. This was when the only person acting was Trump, when he had formed a task force, declared a public health emergency, activated the CDC, and cut travel with China. All this, while Democrats were calling his responses hysterical xenophobia. My colleague Scott Hounsell has a good breakdown of how this is such a smear, especially given Democrats’ own reaction and considering the context of the time.

But Dr. Anthony Fauci also just put a stake through the heart of this latest effort by the left even before it got off the mark. Fauci told Fox’s John Roberts that Trump “didn’t really say anything different than he discussed when we were with him.”



According to the Fox News Channel Daily Briefing, Fauci said he didn’t see any discrepancies between what they were telling the President and what Trump was telling the public.

FAUCI: No. No, no, I didn’t. I didn’t get any sense that he was distorting anything. I mean in my discussions with him, they were always straightforward about the concerns that we had. We related that to him.
And when he would go out, I’d hear him discussing the same sort of things. He would often say, we just got through with a briefing with the group from the task force and would talk about it.

So Fauci made it clear that Trump was not distorting or downplaying anything that they were telling him. That yes, he obviously wanted to make people feel better but that he’d always relayed what they were telling him.

This is consistent with what Fauci has repeatedly said, that Trump always listened to what they were saying, contrary to the media attempts to claim the contrary. Fauci has repeatedly praised Trump’s quick response to the virus and said that his actions saved many lives by early on cutting travel with China, a move that Democrats criticized and something Joe Biden didn’t even concede was correct until April 2.

Roberts also asked about remarks in the book that were supposedly attributed to Fauci.




ROBERTS: I don’t want to put you on the spot here, and I know you talk a lot about the idea that noise sort of gets in there and clouds the message, but you are quoted in the Woodward book as well. According to “The Washington Post,” Fauci at one point tells others that the president quote “Is on a separate channel and unfocused in meetings with,” quote “Rudderless leadership,” according to Woodward. It said, his attention span is like a minus number, Fauci said, according to Woodward, his sole purpose is to get reelected.
FAUCI: Right.
ROBERTS: Is that correct?
FAUCI: You know, if you notice, it was others have said that.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
FAUCI: So you know, you should ask others. I don’t recall that at all.
So I mean in the book — I didn’t read the book, but according to what I saw in the newspapers it says, and others have said that, so you know — I mean I don’t really want to get involved in the kind of stuff. That is very distracting to the kind of things that I’m trying to do, and that we’re all trying to do, with this outbreak.
ROBERTS: So you would question that account of then?
FAUCI: Yeah, yeah.
ROBERTS: All right.

He’s denying he ever said any such thing and it’s clear that the book is saying that came from others, not from him. So it’s basically more nonsense.

So, whether this is just to get people to buy Woodward’s book and/or just another smear, Fauci just punctured it. Nothing was ever downplayed or distorted. Again, if this were actually bad in February why wouldn’t it have been reported at the time? Because there wasn’t anything wrong and it was clear in the context of the time. They’re just trying to twist it now.

But don’t expect this to be the last attempt to try to smear Trump, just shows how desperate they are at this point.

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