The NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci gave a series of interviews to The Atlantic this week, in which he responded forcefully to the list of alleged mistakes he has made that was given to the press by his opponents in the White House staff, and especially trade adviser Peter Navarro’s op-ed with its wholesale denunciation of Fauci’s record. Fauci noted, accurately, that such statements only hurt President Donald Trump himself.
“I stand by everything I said. Contextually, at the time I said it, it was absolutely true,” Fauci stated. “I think if you talk to reasonable people in the White House, they realize that was a major mistake on their part, because it doesn’t do anything but reflect poorly on them.… Ultimately, it hurts the President to do that. When the staff lets out something like that and the entire scientific and press community push back on it, it ultimately hurts the President. And I don’t really want to hurt the President. But that’s what’s happening. I told him [Chief of Staff Mark Meadows] I thought it was a big mistake. That doesn’t serve any good purpose for what we’re trying to do.”
Asked about Navarro’s op-ed in particular, Fauci replied: “I can’t explain Peter Navarro. He’s in a world by himself. So I don’t even want to go there.”
