Dr. Fauci gave the mainstream media a huge chunk of red meat to feast on this past Sunday when he suggested that lives could have been saved if mitigation efforts were implemented sooner.
It was an answer to a hypothetical question by CNN’s Jake Tapper, which was really disingenuous in the first place. Theoretically you can claim that if you started mitigating in November of 2019 you could have saved lives, but that’s impractical and outside the reality of the situation. So Dr. Fauci, being a smart guy, should have realized it was a “gotcha” question to begin with. He should have simply said that there is no point in going over every hypothetical scenario and that mitigation was started as early as possible.
But instead, he played along. He said that indeed lives could have been saved if mitigation was started earlier. By saying this, he gave the media exactly what they were looking for. He gave it to them at the beginning of the Sunday morning news cycle, where big stories are mentioned on the Sunday political shows and plastered all over the news in the days that follow.
So the question is, was this just a case of Dr. Fauci using imprecise language or is he playing a game? That game is one we have seen for the past three years with the mainstream media and anti-Trump pundits. It involves running a knowingly false story with a sensational headline or soundbite, then a day or two later, quietly retracting or correcting the story. The intent here is simple, the sensational headline gets millions of views, and the later retraction only gets a few thousand. The fake story and headline serves its purpose to misinform, and by the time the retraction comes, the public has already moved on to the next story. The fake news becomes a fact despite being corrected.
Is this what Dr. Fauci is doing?
On Monday, Dr. Fauci “clarified” his position on his earlier statements. During the daily White House coronavirus press briefing, Dr. Fauci clarified that President Trump acted immediately when mitigation efforts were recommended to him.
So was this really Dr. Fauci clarifying his statements, or is he trying to play both sides here? On one hand knowingly giving the anti-Trump media red meat to run their fake headlines, but then countering it the next day so that he can appear loyal to the task force while really undermining it.
As we know, Dr. Fauci was and is a fierce Hillary Clinton loyalists. Leaked emails between Hillary’s staff and himself show the fawning language Dr. Fauci used to heap praise on Hillary. In one exchange, he said to “Please tell the Secretary that I love her more than ever…” after reading a copy of a speech she planned on giving.
So Dr. Fauci’s political leanings are pretty obvious. But is he secretly trying to sabotage Trump’s efforts? It’s hard to say for sure, but he’s far too smart of a guy to keep falling for these “gotcha” questions. He’s been in public service for far too long not to understand how the media works. He’s been doing this job for decades, and for him to play like he’s naive to all of this just seem disingenuous.
I think he is fully aware of what he is doing when he uses this “imprecise” language as he calls it. It allows him to play both sides, and ultimately I think his goal is to give unflattering testimony during the Democrats’ inevitable coronavirus hearings and investigations this summer.
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