Can we trust Dr. Fauci? Someone raised this question earlier. It is an interesting one. (Thread)
Donald Trump effectively makes everyone around him liars. To hold a top position in his administration you obviously have to be a shameless sycophant, constantly praising Trump's great leadership. But we know this about Pence, Mulvaney, Meadows, and other top people.
Trump also got people like Gov. Newsom in CA & Cuomo in NY to praise his handling of the crisis even when their states were obviously suffering from a lack of federal support.
The reason was simple, Trump made clear that he would withhold aid from states with governors who didn't praise him. So Newsom, Cuomo, and no doubt many other governors decided that to save lives of people in their states they would lie and say Trump was doing a good job
So, getting to Fauci (who I know nothing about directly), if we believe that he is trying to do the best job he can protecting people from the pandemic, what is he going to say about Trump?
Fauci surely understands he is dealing with a tempestuous four-year-old who is thrilled by the fact that he can fire anyone he wants.
In that context, if Fauci truly believes that Trump has acted like a complete moron throughout the crisis, trivializing it and denouncing the warnings of the pandemic's danger as a "hoax," is that any likelihood at all that he would publicly say this and risk getting fired?
It's not that Fauci would be worried about his job, the problem would be that if Fauci were dumped or pushed aside, he would be leaving the field to clowns like Jared Kushner and Larry Kudlow.
In that context, the most responsible thing for Fauci to do is almost certainly to praise Trump's conduct with the hope that he can try to limit how reckless he will be going forward.
