\n

The commutation of Roger Stone\u2019s sentence may have more profound legal implications, and the Redskins changing their name may have more cultural significance.<\/p>\n

But the escalating warfare between President Trump and Anthony Fauci may well have a more immediate impact on the pandemic that is increasingly devastating our country.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to cast this as merely a media-generated feud, it represents a fundamental clash over how to handle the coronavirus that keeps breaking records, rather than fading with the July heat, as the administration once predicted.<\/p>\n

TRUMP VS. STATES AND SCHOOLS: POLITICAL PRESSURE DESPITE LOCAL CONTROL<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

To be sure, the charge that the White House has done an \u201coppo dump\u201d on Fauci is rather overblown. To me, that signifies a stealthy handoff of documents or encoded digital communication to get dirt into the hands of reporters. The Trump team is just stabbing Fauci in the front.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re doing it by pointing to his past public statements, which are obviously fair game.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, the president hasn\u2019t spoken to Fauci in more than a month.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, the president is the decision-maker and Fauci is a medical expert who, by his own account, is not in charge of setting policy. Still, the 79-year-old doctor, who has been part of the government\u2019s infectious disease agency since the Reagan administration, is widely respected, and part of his job is to work on a vaccine.<\/p>\n

For an administration that has been accused of ignoring science, this seems somewhat petty. But there is an important clash here: Fauci casts himself as a truth-teller, and Trump wants to control the administration\u2019s message, which is that the pandemic is under control and things will be getting better.<\/p>\n

That, admittedly, is a harder sell when the number of new daily Covid-19 cases surged past 66,000 heading into the weekend, and Florida broke the single-day record for a state on Sunday with more than 15,000 cases. And it comes at a time when the president is pressuring governors, with a threatened funding cutoff, to physically reopen the nation\u2019s schools in September.<\/p>\n

What the White House has done, among other things, is basically kept Fauci off television. \u201cFace the Nation\u201d host Margaret Brennan told viewers she\u2019s been trying to book him for three months. The coronavirus task force briefings have become infrequent, handed off to Mike Pence and moved out of the White House, and Fauci\u2019s schedule was such that he couldn\u2019t attend the last one.<\/p>\n

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead, he\u2019s been doing podcasts and print interviews, such as one in which he told the Financial Times<\/a>: \u201cI have a reputation, as you have probably figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven\u2019t been on television very much lately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a> reports that White House communications aides did approve appearances by Fauci on the PBS \u201cNewsHour,\u201d \u201cMeet the Press\u201d and a CNN town hall. But those were canceled after Fauci did a Facebook Live event with Democratic Sen. Doug Jones and disputed Trump\u2019s assertion that the country\u2019s lower death rate was a sign of progress, calling that a \u201cfalse narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur bigger issue with Fauci is stop critiquing the task force .\u2009.\u2009. and try to fix it,\u201d an administration official told the Post.<\/p>\n

Trump, for his part, has called Fauci \u201ca nice man, but he\u2019s made a lot of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the official counterattack.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,\u201d says a statement sent by the White House to reporters.<\/p>\n

The Post says this \u201cincluded a lengthy list of the scientist\u2019s comments from early in the outbreak. Those included his early doubt that people with no symptoms could play a significant role in spreading the virus…They also point to public reassurances Fauci made in late February, around the time of the first U.S. case of community transmission, that \u201cat this moment, there is no need to change anything that you\u2019re doing on a day-by-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure he\u2019s made some missteps, Fauci\u2019s supporters say. But when he downplayed the need for masks early on, it was because he was worried about a shortage and wanted to keep them for health care workers.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>, in picking up the story yesterday, said the White House left out Fauci\u2019s words, in an NBC interview, immediately after his \u201cno need to change anything\u201d comment:<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now the risk is still low, but this could change. When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked yesterday by CNN\u2019s Jim Acosta why the White House was \u201ctrashing\u201d Fauci, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the statement came in response to the Post\u2019s questions and the two men \u201chave always had a very good working relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president has mentioned Fauci\u2019s high approval ratings. A Times poll last month found that 67 percent of Americans trusted Fauci on Covid-19, while 26 percent trusted Trump.<\/p>\n

If Fauci was a political appointee, he\u2019d probably have gone the way of Jeff Sessions, Jim Mattis and John Bolton\u00a0by now. But as a career civil servant, he can\u2019t be fired. So the White House is clearly sidelining him instead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame the two men, despite their contrasting styles, can\u2019t find a way to work together, as this is a distraction in the war on their common enemy: the virus itself.<\/p>\n

Footnote: President Trump has retweeted the following missive from game show host Chuck Woolery:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it\u2019s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I\u2019m sick of it\u2026There is so much evidence, yes scientific evidence, that schools should open this fall. It\u2019s worldwide and it\u2019s overwhelming. BUT NO.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The commutation of Roger Stone\u2019s sentence may have more profound legal implications, and the Redskins changing their name may have more cultural significance.But the escalating warfare between President Trump and Anthony Fauci may well have a more immediate impact on the pandemic that is increasingly devastating our country.While it\u2019s easy to cast this as merely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,526],"class_list":{"0":"post-56679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-trump","9":"tag-white"},"yoast_head":"\n