Drew Holden Profile picture
Jul 28, 2021 18 tweets 10 min read Read on X
🧵THREAD🧵

We’ve all seen the various flip-flops of the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci over the last 18 months.

To help keep track, I present “Fauci vs. Fauci,” chronicling the twists, turns, contradictions and backtracks from the man and his agency.⤵️
To start, we need to focus on Dr. Fauci’s perspective on the virus itself and it’s risk to the United States.

In late January 2020, Fauci said that COVID was a “very, very low risk to the United States.”

I think it goes without saying that his perspective has evolved since. ImageImage
One big, obvious area of flipping is around the benefits of wearing a mask. Dr. Fauci originally said that masks weren’t effective & publicly encouraged Americans not to buy them (guidance he doesn’t regret).

Now even vaccinated people need to wear masks. ImageImageImage
And it wasn’t just the efficacy of masks in general. Less than a month ago , Dr. Fauci declared confidently that the CDC wasn’t going to change its recommendation about masking given the Delta variant.

We’ve already seen changes, and more are under consideration. ImageImageImage
And how many masks were we all supposed to wear, anyway?

Was it one mask? Two masks? No mask? A face shield? Goggles? Depending on when you asked Dr. Fauci, it could’ve been anything. ImageImageImageImage
Dr. Fauci was a leading voice suggesting for months that the pandemic couldn’t possibly have leaked from a lab in Wuhan (one that received US tax dollars, by the way).

That was until the consensus changed. And then, suddenly, the theory couldn’t be dismissed.

Complete 180 ImageImage
These reversals cut in both directions. Back in September, the CDC changed its rules - reportedly under political pressure - to reduce the people it advised getting tested, before quickly reversing course after pressure. ImageImage
And you may have forgotten, but the CDC had a brouhaha also in September when new guidance about airborne transmission - including beyond 6 feet - went live on the agency’s website.

It was quickly scrubbed after a brief medical & news firestorm.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring ImageImage
Schools have seen lots of reversals. In February, the CDC Director said schools could reopen safely w/o teachers vaccinated.

Well, a few calls from the teachers union later, the CDC reversed course. Weeks later, new guidance (sensing a theme?) was released focusing on teachers. ImageImageImage
And we had plenty of flips when it came to teachers wearing masks.

First, the CDC said that they had to, back in May 2020.

Then earlier this month, the CDC said vaccinated teachers and students don’t need one.

But now? Back to where we started - masks for the vaccinated. ImageImage
And who could forget the approval, then pause, then unpause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, a move that diminished American confidence in vaccines in the midst of a vaccine rollout during a global pandemic? ImageImageImage
The coronavirus pandemic is unlike anything any of us have seen before. There should be some charity and humility about bad predictions.

But the idea that Dr. Fauci and the CDC haven’t flip-flopped? That’s just preposterous. Image
Is it any wonder Americans don’t trust public health experts after this? Does it surprise anyone that Dr. Fauci and the CDC aren’t seen as reputable now?

These failures have consequences, and you can measure them in lives.
I don’t have anything to sell or subscribe to, but if you’re able, this is still an incredibly difficult time for local food banks. Here in DC, Capital Area Food Bank is well worth your charity. capitalareafoodbank.org
Important 🧵 addition. You may remember that, back in April, Dr. Fauci said new case levels meant we were primed for a surge.

As you can see by the case count, that didn’t happen (1/2) ImageImage
But now, as blue states who have supposedly done everything right see their counts increase, Dr. Fauci has realized (too late, IMO) that case counts actually aren’t worth worrying about.

Interesting how that happens. (2/2) ImageImage
This news comes on the heels of CDC Director Walensky giving the game away on isolation periods, admitting that their guidance changed not with any science but because they didn’t think folks could “tolerate” longer periods (again, now that it’s the Good Guys getting sick) Image
That led to a backlash from the media and powerful unions which - somehow - has caused “the science” to quickly shift once again, requiring “further clarification” imminently ImageImageImage

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More from @DrewHolden360

Jun 27
🧵Thread🧵

You remember Russian Collusion. But do you remember the “Russian bounties” allegation, where the press ran with a conspiracy theory to make Trump look like a monster?

With the debate tonight, I think it’s timely to revisit a falsehood Biden pushed. Follow along ⤵️
It started with a scoop from @nytimes that claimed Russia had placed bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan, that Trump knew about it, and he did nothing.
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Days later, @washingtonpost followed up with the claim that these bounties—again, allegedly ignored by Trump—led to the deaths of American servicemen.


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Read 24 tweets
Jun 12
🧵Thread🧵

Do you *really* remember the Hunter Biden laptop story? I fear we’ve lost the plot.

With Hunter’s name in the news I wanted to revisit the extent to which the media went to cover up corruption allegations against—and at the behest of—his father.

Follow along. ⤵️
You have to start with the scoop from @nypost and @EmmaJoNYC.

Their lede from October was damning:

“Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.”Image
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The story was fundamentally about Joe Biden’s alleged corruption. It was huge news, on the eve of an election.

The press leapt to claim the scoop wasn’t legit. And they reframed the issue: now it was about Hunter, not Joe. Here’s @NPR before/after
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Read 27 tweets
May 29
Good to see the NYT’s considerable resources being put to finding the truth in a debate between private citizens that led one of them to raise a flag upside down.

Real afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted stuff here.
This is not, in a well ordered universe, news.

It has only become “news” because of the pivot to left wing clickbait that Trump inspired among the press.
It’s politically inspired harassment and not only is it noxious it’s driving a deep animus among its target demo that is fraying what remains of the bounds of our body politic and society more broadly.
Read 4 tweets
May 28
🧵Thread🧵

I’ve got an oldie-but-a-goodie for you from the archive of unhinged media coverage.

Do you remember how insane the coverage of Trump’s killing of Iranian Gen. Soleimani was?

I bet it’s worse than you remember. Follow along ⤵️
It all started with what I’ve gotta say might be the coldest presidential use of social media in history.

After ordering the strike that killed Iranian General Qaseem Soleimani, Trump tweeted out simply a picture of an American flag.

Many in the media went berserk. Image
First, the issue was directly with what Trump had done. Outlets claimed that he was rushing America into a war. @washingtonpost tried to point out the hypocrisy of a president who had said he would prevent a war.

All evidence suggests he did exactly that.
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Read 25 tweets
May 23
My hottest take is that, outside of the Beltway (something, to be clear, I am not!) most Americans to the right of MSNBC simply don’t feel anything like “vertigo” about Trump. Image
I think part of why Trump is such a visceral experience for so many people who have been in DC for a long time is that these types of people (again, me included!) weren’t familiar with the idea that they could viscerally hate a politician even when he’s out of office.
I think, for lots of people, hating a politician for who they are is not a new experience, but is in fact their default setting for politicians of at least one political party — if not both.
Read 5 tweets
May 22
If you were making a parody of MSNBC, what would you do differently than what the network already produces? Image
I recognize this is an opinion piece but the decision to run an opinion piece is…a decision.
I’m imagining every on-air host at MSNBC reading this headline and starting to think this could be a Veep-like tv show.
Read 5 tweets

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