WH won’t embrace Navarro’s critique
The Trump administration is distancing itself from a senior adviser’s critique of Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who has delivered warnings about the coronavirus’s resurgence as the president pushes to reopen.
Peter Navarro, the White House’s director for the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, wrote an op-ed published in USA Today criticizing Fauci. Navarro also had earlier sent a similar statement to CBS.
The statement was not signed off on by the White House communications office, according to Alyssa Farah, the White House’s director of strategic communications. Navarro was speaking for himself, Farah said Wednesday.
In his statement, Navarro said Fauci has regularly been wrong, saying he didn’t favor Trump’s travel ban from China, initially downplayed the risk of the virus and flip-flopped on masks. “When you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution,” Navarro wrote.
It’s the latest broadside from the administration directed at one of the country’s top health officials. President Donald Trump himself has chastised Fauci over his “mistakes” and caution about opening schools. Dan Scavino, another senior adviser to Trump, posted an image to his Facebook campaign depicting Fauci as “Dr. Faucet,” washing the U.S. economy down the drain.
Fauci has regularly been more candid than Trump and other administration officials in warning of the virus’ risks. Tuesday night, during a virtual forum hosted by Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiative, Fauci called COVID-19 a “pandemic of historic proportions” and compared the crisis to the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people globally and about 675,000 in the U.S. “I hope we don’t even approach that with this, but it does have the makings of, the possibility of ... approaching that in seriousness,” he said.
White House criticisms of Fauci have drawn pushback from Republican circles.
“The attempted trashing of his reputation by the likes of a kook like Peter Navarro is a disgrace,” Tony Fratto, a White House aide under George W. Bush, tweeted Wednesday.
Fauci was asked Tuesday about the criticism. “It doesn’t bother me. I have a job to do and I do it. I don’t pay attention to noise, I pay attention to substance,” he replied. Wednesday, he was even stronger, calling the criticism “nonsense” and “a bit bizarre.”
Fauci, during the Georgetown forum, urged students to separate politics from science as they navigate life. “Do your thing, and don’t get involved in any of the political nonsense, that’s a waste of time, and a distraction,” Fauci said.