Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, attends a Senate committee hearing last month. (Al Drago/Pool/Reuters)
Opinion by Editorial Board
CONFRONTED WITH the gravest crisis in decades, the United States needs leadership in public health and biomedicine. Anthony S. Fauci has been preparing for such a role in a lifetime of distinguished service in science and public policy. He helped develop the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, perhaps the largest public health program ever aimed at a single disease. He joined President Trump from the podium in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, Mr. Trump is leading a despicable back-alley campaign to discredit him, to the detriment of the nation.
Dr. Fauci was a steady voice of calm and reason in those early, uncertain weeks, and polls show he enjoys high levels of public confidence. But Mr. Trump and his White House decided to rush pell-mell to relax restrictions and encourage states to reopen. Dr. Fauci, who was named director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease when Ronald Reagan was president, told the Financial Times that he last saw Mr. Trump in person on June 2 and has not briefed the president for at least two months. What a pity that Mr. Trump in his ignorance does not listen to the best and brightest.
Even more disturbing is Mr. Trump’s attempt to besmirch and undermine Dr. Fauci, perhaps to please his political base. Mr. Trump told Fox News that Dr. Fauci “is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.” The White House sent a document to The Post and others listing statements Dr. Fauci had made, as if he were the opposition candidate to be attacked in a political race. The statements were entirely understandable, made when knowledge was scarce about the virus. Unknowns, mistakes and discovery are at the core of science that Dr. Fauci has devoted his career to pursuing. If anything, the nation needs to hear more of his sobering advice. As he told the FiveThirtyEight podcast last week, “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.”
Besides, does the White House really want to start recalling past statements on the pandemic?
For example: Vice President Pence’s June 16 claim in a Wall St. Journal op-ed, as outbreaks exploded across the Sun Belt: “We are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.”
Or the April 29 prediction by the president’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner: “I think you’ll see by June a lot of the country should be back to normal and the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.”
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Or this Feb. 27 gem from Mr. Trump himself: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
These are the men who are whispering to us that Dr. Fauci made “mistakes”?
We don’t so much worry for Dr. Fauci, whose record and reputation will easily survive the shabby attacks from this shabby administration. But we worry plenty for the country, which is heading in the wrong direction as Dr. Fauci’s advice is ignored.
