At the beginning of Trump’s briefing today, Dr. Fauci clarified an answer he gave yesterday on CNN that caused some to suggest he was blaming the president for not acting earlier:
The issue was that Fauci answered a hypothetical in the CNN interview suggesting if we started social distancing measures earlier it would have be better. He then suggested in the same interview that there was ‘pushback’ against starting mitigation earlier.
The word ‘pushback’ was the red flag for the media, suggesting that Trump was telling the task force no. But when asked about the word ‘pushback’, Fauci said that wasn’t the best word to use, suggesting that he was referring simply to disagreement on the task force about the impact of the measures. He said no one was telling them no, they couldn’t do it.
Fauci made clear that when the task force brought Trump the decision to begin the social distancing guidance for 15 days, he was on board. And then when they suggested 30 days, Trump was again on board.
I’ll just note what I said in the comments of the briefing thread, that I was satisfied with Fauci’s explanation and thought he responded well to the controversy that came from his remarks. The media is always looking for any kind of opening they can turn into a scandal. But even in the CNN interview I didn’t think Fauci was trying to be scandalous or trying to suggest Trump was a problem of any kind. Rather he suggested that making these kinds of decisions are very complex and it’s not always as simple as looks when looking back.
I tend to give Trump and his task force a fair amount of latitude with this pandemic simply because it’s hard to predict the future. It’s easy to look back and point fingers. But the truth is that if it weren’t for the social distancing measures that took place, as well as Trump pulling together the private sector to make up for severe deficiencies in government, we’d be in a much, much worse situation.
If you want to hear what Fauci was clarifying from yesterday in his CNN interview with Jake Tapper, you can watch that below: