President Trump has not been to a White House coronavirus task force meeting in several months, Anthony Fauci said Friday.
During an interview on “Meet the Press Daily,” the nation’s top infectious disease doctor said he hasn’t directly interacted with or spoken to Trump in some time.
“I definitely don’t have his ear as much as Scott Atlas right now, that has been a changing situation,” Fauci said.
Scott Atlas is a neuroradiologist and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. He was added to the task force over the summer after appearing frequently on Fox News.
Atlas has emerged as one of Trump’s most influential advisers, but he has come under fire from public health experts inside and outside the administration who accuse him of feeding the president — and the public — misinformation.
Fauci said he meets virtually with the heads of federal health agencies, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, as well as task force coordinator Deborah Birx.
Fauci said that during the spring, the task force would meet almost every day, but once the focus of the White House shifted to the economics of reopening the country, the frequency of official task force meetings has dropped to once a week.
Fauci said most of his interactions with the White House now are with Vice President Pence.
“We certainly interact with the vice president at the task force meetings, and the vice president makes our feelings known to the president, but direct involvement with the president and discussions, I have not done that in a while,” Fauci said.
Fauci said the country is in a “precarious” position, and people really need to understand how difficult the winter will be if coronavirus infections continue to spike the way they are now.
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Fauci: Trump has not been to a task force meeting in months https://t.co/mM6xagPVVS pic.twitter.com/fycIsTiY6C
— The Hill (@thehill) October 23, 2020
Why bother? Trump really doesn’t care about COVID and how many people get sick and die from it anyway. He won’t listen to real experts in infectious diseases — only to “doctors” (and I use that word loosely for some of them) who will agree with his whacked out theories and ideas on COVID.
Then whole task force was a farce from the beginning. At first Trump put Pence in charge, but then he hijacked the daily briefings and used them to campaign for re-election. He didn’t listen to those advisors, discredited them and caused people (especially his cult) to discount their advice in favor of anything Dear Leader came up with.
This whole mess is among the many reasons why I voted for Biden. I trust if Biden is elected, he will listen to Dr. Fauci and the other real experts and do what is necessary (and what should have been done months ago) to rid us of this virus.
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