Anthony Fauci is known for his data-driven approach to managing the coronavirus crisis. (File)
US President Donald Trump said Monday he has “good relations” with Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease specialist, despite evidence of a growing divide between the two men as coronavirus cases increase in several states.
“I get on very well with him,” Trump told reporters at a White House event. “I love him personally.”
The conciliatory tone was a notable change after White House officials over the weekend distributed to journalists a policy brief that Fauci had made at the start of the pandemic, which was later reversed.
The effort came after Trump publicly criticized Fauci in a pair of television interviews, and an interview published last weekend by the Financial Times in which Fauci said he had not informed the president for more than two months and hadn’t seen him in person at the White House since early June.
Evidence of persistent friction was still apparent on Monday, Trump noting that he did not agree with Fauci on the decision to suspend certain trips from China – a decision that the president said saved tens of thousands of lives. And the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, described Fauci as one of many public health officials – who she said offered “sometimes different opinions” – providing advice to the president.
But McEnany denied that the White House was working to discredit Fauci and described the catalog of missteps seen by the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease as a routine response to questions asked by Washington Post reporters.
“We provided a direct answer to a direct question, and that’s it,” said McEnany.
She added that Trump “certainly” still appreciates Fauci’s advice, despite the fact that the president said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that he “made a lot of mistakes.”
The president said that Fauci had opposed his decision to ban travel from China to the start of the pandemic, a measure that, according to the White House, has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Two days earlier, Trump said he did not agree with Fauci’s assessment that the country was still “knee-deep” in the first wave of the pandemic.
“I don’t agree with him,” Trump said on Gray Television. “Dr. Fauci said not to wear masks and now he says to wear them.”
Fauci defended the opinion that the Americans gave up wearing masks at the start of the pandemic by saying that the administration wanted to preserve supplies for healthcare workers on the front line. And health officials have long warned that their advice to prevent the spread of the disease will change as more information is gathered, he said.
“We were concerned. The public health community, and many people have said, was concerned that this was at a time when personal protective equipment, including N95 masks and surgical masks , was very rare, “Fauci told TheStreet.
Fauci, known for his data-driven approach to managing the crisis, was on the path from the start of the pandemic on a collision course with Trump, whose goal was to blame China for the pandemic and reopen the US economy on as quickly as possible overshadowed – and many times contradicted – messages from the country’s highest public health officials.
This separation corresponded to a number of the president’s inaccuracies, including his July 4 assertion that 99% of coronavirus cases were “harmless”. Fauci said he “was trying to figure out where the president got this number” but nevertheless insisted that he was “sure” that his messages were received by the president.
Fauci also openly confronted some White House officials, including chief business adviser Peter Navarro, who fueled promotion by the administration of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to fight the coronavirus.
Fauci and other government scientists warned that anecdotal reports about hydroxychloroquine were not supported by the data and warned that taking the drug could cause serious side effects. The Food and Drug Administration has warned against using the drug and has suspended a study of its effectiveness, citing health risks.
But Trump openly defended it – even choosing to take hydroxychloroquine when a White House staff member contracted the disease.
“The idea that this is a dangerous drug – it’s just stupid,” Navarro, an economist with no known medical background, told the White House on Tuesday.
The president, always attentive to opinion polls, openly marveled at the high approval rating that his health team obtained, even if the judgment on his performance deteriorated. Only one-third of Americans have approved his management of the coronavirus, while two-thirds have disapproved, according to an ABC News / Ipsos poll released Friday.
The same survey found that 59% of Americans thought the U.S. was reopening the economy too quickly – a push that Trump led and Fauci resisted.
An administration official familiar with the relationship downplayed the friction, saying that Fauci had not expressed internal concern over the situation. The divergence came down to a president who was optimistic about the country’s ability to come out of the pandemic by interacting with a fundamentally conservative health official in his approach, said the person.
Others within the president’s orbit fuel the disagreement into understandable frustration on the part of Trump.
“I don’t think we should necessarily focus on this personal reaction between the president and Dr. Fauci, because again, these are real relationships, ordinary relationships and if you have been wrong several times, that makes someone one wonders if you “we are still wrong,” former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in an interview with CNBC on Monday.
