The former president released a fact-challenged statement criticizing the former advisers after they criticized his administration’s pandemic response.
Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images>
“Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned,” Trump said. “They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine — putting millions of lives at risk.”
Trump’s statement amounted to a point-by-point rebuttal of comments from Fauci and Birx in a CNN documentary that aired Sunday, which featured former Trump health officials, some of whom were critical of the former president.
Fauci said the decision “to go all out and develop a vaccine” was “the best decision that I’ve ever made with regard to an intervention as director of the institute,” referring to his role at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The agency’s vaccine research center helped develop a key component of ultimately successful shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.
But Fauci’s characterization drew Trump’s ire. In his statement on Monday, the ex-president called the vaccines authorized for emergency use “American vaccines,” even though the first vaccine to be authorized in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration was developed by the Turkish immigrants who founded BioNTech in Germany, and later collaborated with Pfizer to bring it to market. Pfizer, which manufactures the vaccine, did not receive development money from the government.
“Dr. Fauci was incapable of pressing the FDA to move it through faster. I was the one to get it done, and even the fake news media knows and reports this,” Trump said, even though Fauci, in his capacity as NIAID director, did not have the authority to pressure the FDA to make such decisions.
Fauci also told CNN that Trump’s social media use ran counter to what the administration’s response should have been. Birx also criticized the inconsistent messaging from the federal government as “fault number one.”
“The thing that hit me like a punch to the chest was then all of a sudden he got up and says, ‘Liberate Virginia, liberate Michigan,’ and I said to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, what is going on here?’” Fauci told CNN, referring to a series of Trump tweets. “It shocked me because it was such a jolt to what we were trying to do.”
In his statement, Trump labeled Fauci as “the king of ‘flip-flops’ and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible,” while adding that he ignored the recommendations of both Fauci and Birx. Because the coronavirus was unknown to the world before late 2019, scientists and health officials fighting the pandemic frequently revised their advice as they have learned more about the virus and the disease it causes. And one official who worked inside the Trump White House said the former president’s criticisms were off the mark.
“Bit of revisionist history from the former president. We all had our issues with Fauci and his media marathons but very few people — including President Trump — had anything negative to say about Dr. Birx,” said the former White House official.
Birx told CNN that the Trump administration could have done more to prevent hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. So far, nearly 550,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus.
“I look at it this way — the first time, we have an excuse. There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” she said. “All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”
Trump criticized Birx for not following her own advice, citing a family trip she took the day after Thanksgiving, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising Americans not to travel over the holidays. Birx later announced that she would retire from her position.
In the past, Birx has said that she “always” thought of quitting the Trump administration over the hyperpartisan nature of the workplace.
“Dr. Birx was a terrible medical advisor, which is why I seldom followed her advice,” Trump said in his statement.
In the interview that aired Sunday, Birx also spoke about a phone call she received from Trump after speaking publicly on CNN in August about the spread of Covid-19.
“Everybody in the White House was upset with that interview and the clarity that I brought about the epidemic,” she said. “I got called by the president. It was very uncomfortable, very direct and very difficult to hear.”
Trump denied that there was a “very difficult” phone call, and criticized Birx for her policies, which he said “would have led us directly into a COVID caused depression.”
“Time has proven me correct,” he said. “I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long — they are like a bad habit!”
Gabby Orr contributed to this report.
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Dr. Birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left. Many of her recommendations were viewed as “pseudo-science,” and Dr. Fauci would always talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her. The States who followed her lead, like California, had worse outcomes on Covid, and ruined the lives of countless children because they couldn’t go to school, ruined many businesses, and an untold number of Americans who were killed by the lockdowns themselves. Dr. Birx was a terrible medical advisor, which is why I seldom followed her advice. Her motto should be “Do as I say, not as I do.” Who can forget when Dr. Birx gave a huge mandate to the people of our Nation to not travel, and then traveled a great distance to see her family for Thanksgiving—only to have them call the police and turn her in? She then, embarrassingly for her, resigned.
Finally, Dr. Birx says she can’t hear very well, but I can. There was no “very difficult” phone call, other than Dr. Birx’s policies that would have led us directly into a COVID caused depression. She was a very negative voice who didn’t have the right answers. Time has proven me correct. I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long—they are like a bad habit!”
The unfortunate reality is that Trump has previously stated that he learned a good lesson from Nixon’s “Saturday night massacre” as it was labelled. He felt that not firing people was the smarter move in these matters – kind of keeping your friends close and enemies closer. But many of these people who he left in place were positioned to through chaos and doubt on Trumps accomplishments and good policy moves. Fauci and Birx could easily be classified in this way. They repeatedly undermined Trump and made statements to deride, belittle and undermine him. Who knows what they were doing off camera to do the same while still holding the impressive titles and positions on the Task Force. It may have been in everyone’s better interest if he publicly removed them for the gross incompetence they both repeatedly displayed. Thousands of lives and livelihoods were damaged and destroyed because of this incompetence(if it was indeed incompetence and not something worse).
Leave it to Politico to mollify by selective editing President Trumps words…
Here is what he wrote, it is worth the read – (his ability to leave the thruth unvarnished is still among his most reliable assets)
“Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned. They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine—putting millions of lives at risk.
We developed American vaccines by an American President in record time, nine months, which is saving the entire world. We bought billions of dollars of these vaccines on a calculated bet that they would work, perhaps the most important bet in the history of the world. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx moved far too slowly, and if it were up to them we’d currently be locked in our basements as our country suffered through a financial depression. Families, and children in particular, would be suffering the mental strains of this disaster like never before.
In a fake interview last night on CNN, Dr. Fauci, who said he was an athlete in college but couldn’t throw a baseball even close to home plate, it was a “roller,” tried to take credit for the vaccine, when in fact he said it would take three to five years, and probably longer, to have it approved. Dr. Fauci was incapable of pressing the FDA to move it through faster. I was the one to get it done, and even the fake news media knows and reports this.
Dr. Fauci is also the king of “flip-flops” and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible. He fought me so hard because he wanted to keep our country open to countries like China. I closed it against his strong recommendation, which saved many lives. Dr. Fauci also said we didn’t need to wear masks, then a few months later he said we needed to wear masks, and now, two or three of them. Fauci spent U.S. money on the Wuhan lab in China—and we now know how that worked out.
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I’m an Anti-Faucist. Should we start a league? Our key doctrines can all come from Leftist playbooks: “It’s my body. I have FREE CHOICE about what goes into it. We can be “Pro Choice” and “Pro LIfe” at the same time. 🙂