On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Dr. Fauci made comments that were wildly distorted by the media. “You could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives,” he said. “Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right. Obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down.”
During the Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Monday, Dr. Fauci sought to clarify those comments, and make it clear that despite the way the media was spinning it, the first time he and Dr. Birx recommended “shutting down” the country to mitigate the spread of the virus Trump listened.
Dr. Fauci says President @realDonaldTrump did NOT delay at all when the recommendation was made to put in place mitigation pic.twitter.com/PyYijpGVIx
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) April 13, 2020
But the most stunning moment came when CBS White House correspondent Paula Reid asked him, “Are you doing this voluntarily?” as if to imply he’d been forced to make this clarification for the president’s benefit.
“Everything I do is voluntary,” he replied, clearly insulted by the question. “Please… don’t even imply that.”
Journalist asks: “Are you doing this voluntarily?”
Dr. Fauci: “Everything I do is voluntary.. please.. don’t even imply that.” pic.twitter.com/sG8TV9ndVI
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) April 13, 2020
Bottom line: Dr. Fauci confirmed that President Trump took the advice of health experts every time. Even Dr. Fauci has had enough of the biased media.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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