After disappearing for more than a week, Donald Trump’s top health officials tasked with combatting the US’s worsening coronavirus outbreak appeared with the president during a White House press conference on Friday.
Drs Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, two of the nation’s top infectious disease experts, stood behind Trump as he and members of the White House coronavirus taskforce, including the defense secretary, Mark Esper, and health and human services secretary, Alex Azar, provided updates on vaccine development.
The doctors were two of only a few participants to wear masks. They did not speak. In the press briefing, Trump provided an optimistic timeline of “the end of the year” for a coronavirus vaccine to be approved.
But that appeared inconsistent with Fauci who has said 12-18 months is a best-case scenario.
The president then voiced optimism that schools could reopen by fall, asserting: “Vaccine or no vaccine, [the country is] back.” He shot down concerns about students and teachers bringing the virus home , saying he was “concerned about everything”.
Jim Sciutto
(@jimsciutto)The personal attacks on Dr. Fauci & his interview exile are sad but predictable, fitting a pattern for officials who contradict WH’s chosen narrative. See everyone from intel officials & GOP lawmakers who backed assessment of Russian 2016 interference to Ukraine witnesses.
Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, and Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are two of the nation’s top public health experts that CNN reported on Friday had briefly disappeared from national television. Until recent days they had been speaking at White House briefings and doing press interviews regularly.
As the White House increased control over communications and refocused its message toward reopening the economy, appearances by the pair and others had all but stopped.
Before Friday, Birx and Fauci’s most recent televised interviews occurred on 4 and 5 May, respectively. Other health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director, Robert Redfield, surgeon general, Jerome Adams, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, Stephen Hahn, had not appeared in interviews since April.
Some of the five have stood behind the president at press events. Fauci, Redfield and Hahn all testified via video conference before members of the US Senate this week.
As of Friday, more than 86,000 people in the US have died of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
It isn’t the first attempt by the White House to limit certain media appearances. As reports of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine proved overhyped, a Politico analysis found mentions of the potential coronavirus treatment by White House officials had ceased.
Trump and several other White House leaders had previously promoted hydroxychloroquine’s use during taskforce briefings and television interviews.
The White House had planned to pivot the focus of the president’s press conference to the economy over the coming months. In recent weeks, the briefings have included business leaders, personal protective equipment providers and healthcare workers heaping praise on the administration’s response efforts.
Following requests for comment by CNN, a spokesperson for Adams pointed to interviews he did with print publications in May. The CDC mentioned that Redfield was interviewed by the Washington Post, and a spokesperson for Hahn did not respond.
The White House also noted that three of five had been self-isolating after possible exposure to the virus, cautioning that health officials would probably reappear in televisions interviews and press conferences in the near future.
Notably absent from press briefings and taskforce meetings is Mike Pence, who has led the coronavirus taskforce.
Although the vice-president had denied reports that he is self-quarantining after his press secretary, Katie Miller, tested positive for the virus last week, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, told reporters Pence had made a “personal decision” to “keep his distance for a few days”.
Trump said he often speaks with the vice-president by phone, telling reporters: “I miss him.” McEnany did not address the health officials’ media hiatus on Friday.
