(Amazon.com)
A reasonable person might think that during the COVID pandemic, which started during Donald Trump's first term as president, Americans needed calm, intelligent, rational leadership. But that is not what America got, according to a new memoir from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was our nation's point person in the battle against the coronavirus, which originated in China and causes COVID.
How did President Trump react to a time of crisis -- a public-health threat unlike anything most Americans had seen in our lifetimes, and which ultimately led to roughly 1.2 million U.S. deaths.
According to a report at The New Republic (TNR), Trump was anything but a cool head during the pandemic. Associate writer Hafiz Rashid provides details under the headline "Fauci Exposes Trump’s Unhinged Behavior Amid Covid Crisis; In his new memoir, Dr. Anthony Fauci reveals shocking details about how Trump treated him during the Covid-19 pandemic."
As a leading infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci was thrust into a leadership role during the Covid-19 pandemic and experienced volatile treatment from Donald Trump during his presidency, Fauci wrote in his new memoir.
Trump would “announce that he loved me and then scream at me on the phone,” Fauci wrote of the abusive behavior in On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,which was published in June.
“Let’s just say, I found this to be out of the ordinary,” Fauci wrote. According to the immunologist, Trump would drop f-bombs often in conversations, including one where the then-president claimed Fauci cost the U.S. economy “one trillion fucking dollars.”
Trump made nutty claims about the virus, statements that had no basis in reality, and he often relied on the advice of ill-informed advisers. It all added up to create a chaotic environment, which should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed Trump's leadership style. Rashid writes:
In his new book, Fauci talks about how badly Trump wanted to reopen the country and his embrace of poorly qualified advisers pushing unproven treatments, according to The Daily Beast. Fauci also discussed Trump’s hospitalization with Covid and his outrageous claim that bleach could kill the virus.
In the early days of the pandemic, Trump was not in a good mood. Fauci wrote about his “first experience [of] the brunt of the president’s rage,” just a few months into the outbreak.
“On the evening of June 3 [2020], my cell phone rang,” Fauci writes, “and the caller—the president—started screaming at me,” angry that Fauci told a journalist that immunity to coronaviruses was “usually six months to a year.” This meant that when a vaccine for Covid was developed, it would probably need booster shots.
While Fauci said this was common for illnesses like the flu, his remark was “wrongly reported on Twitter and in some media outlets as the Covid vaccine protecting people only for a very short time,” and this drew Trump’s fury.
“It was quite a phone call,” Fauci writes. “The president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him. He said he loved me, but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse.
One should note that Trump's mishandling of the crisis, marked by his usual style of malfeasance, ranting and deceit, allowed the virus to take hold in the U.S. -- but he directed his rage at Fauci. That appears to be Trump's malignant narcissism at work. When something goes wrong, it never can be his responsibility; the finger must be pointed elsewhere. Rashid writes:
“I have a pretty thick skin,” Fauci added, “but getting yelled at by the president of the United States, no matter how much he tells you that he loves you, is not fun.”
Fauci’s time as the public face of the government’s efforts during the pandemic, as well as Trump’s treatment of him, led to right-wing figures spouting conspiracy theories about him and attacking efforts such as lockdowns and masks. Conservatives still hate the immunologist, and Republican lawmakers attempted to wildly smear him on a recent visit to Capitol Hill and proposed getting hold of his personal emails. If he makes public appearances to promote his book, as authors usually do, he’s likely to get more vitriol and attacks, despite his career in public service.
Fauci has watched Trump govern from close range, and the doctor portrays the president as a hothead whose rage often overrides any hint of good judgment he might possess. Is this the kind of leadership America needs going forward? Why do some would-be voters support Trump? Is there any reality-based reason to support him? Fauci's answer likely would be no. And our guess is that he would encourage Trump supporters to look in the mirror and ask themselves, "Why do I support Donald Trump?" Let's pray they come up with a meaningful answer before we find ourselves saddled with an authoritarian government of Trump's making -- one designed to benefit him and not the American people.
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