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Trump and his allies try to rewrite, distort history of pandemic while casting Fauci as public enemy
Politics
Trump and his allies try to rewrite, distort history of pandemic while casting Fauci as public enemy No. 1
By Matt Viser and Yasmeen Abutaleb
June 5, 2021 at 10:00 p.m. EDT
Donald Trump and his Republican allies have spent the past few weeks trying to rewrite or distort the history of the pandemic, attempting with renewed vigor to villainize Anthony S. Fauci while lionizing the former president for what they portray as heroic foresight and underappreciated efforts to combat the deadly virus.
They have focused on the early moments of the coronavirus response and the origins of the virus, downplaying any role they may have played and casting others in the wrong, at times taking comments out of context and at others drawing conclusions that are unproved.
And at a time when the number of vaccinated people continues to rise and deaths are at one of their lowest levels, it has placed the coronavirus back at the center of the political debate. Trump is planning to make it a chief argument in a reputation rehabilitation effort. And Republicans are also making it a centerpiece of their midterm election campaigns, pledging to hold congressional investigations if they win back the House majority.
“Now everybody is agreeing that I was right when I very early on called Wuhan as the source of COVID-19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus,” Trump said in a recent statement. “To me it was obvious from the beginning but I was badly criticized, as usual. Now they are all saying ‘He was right.’ Thank you!”
Fauci and Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, listen as Trump speaks during a briefing at the White House in March last year. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
{snip}
Josh Dawsey and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
By Matt Viser
Matt Viser is a national political reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in October 2018. He was previously the deputy chief of the Washington Bureau for the Boston Globe, where he covered Congress, the presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2016, and John Kerry’s tenure as secretary of state. Twitter https://twitter.com/mviser
By Yasmeen Abutaleb
Yasmeen Abutaleb joined The Washington Post in 2019 as a national reporter covering health policy, with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services, health policy on Capitol Hill and health care in politics. She previously covered health care for Reuters, with a focus on the Affordable Care Act, federal health programs and drug pricing. Twitter https://twitter.com/yabutaleb7
Trump and his allies try to rewrite, distort history of pandemic while casting Fauci as public enemy No. 1
By Matt Viser and Yasmeen Abutaleb
June 5, 2021 at 10:00 p.m. EDT
Donald Trump and his Republican allies have spent the past few weeks trying to rewrite or distort the history of the pandemic, attempting with renewed vigor to villainize Anthony S. Fauci while lionizing the former president for what they portray as heroic foresight and underappreciated efforts to combat the deadly virus.
They have focused on the early moments of the coronavirus response and the origins of the virus, downplaying any role they may have played and casting others in the wrong, at times taking comments out of context and at others drawing conclusions that are unproved.
And at a time when the number of vaccinated people continues to rise and deaths are at one of their lowest levels, it has placed the coronavirus back at the center of the political debate. Trump is planning to make it a chief argument in a reputation rehabilitation effort. And Republicans are also making it a centerpiece of their midterm election campaigns, pledging to hold congressional investigations if they win back the House majority.
“Now everybody is agreeing that I was right when I very early on called Wuhan as the source of COVID-19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus,” Trump said in a recent statement. “To me it was obvious from the beginning but I was badly criticized, as usual. Now they are all saying ‘He was right.’ Thank you!”
Fauci and Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, listen as Trump speaks during a briefing at the White House in March last year. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
{snip}
Josh Dawsey and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
By Matt Viser
Matt Viser is a national political reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in October 2018. He was previously the deputy chief of the Washington Bureau for the Boston Globe, where he covered Congress, the presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2016, and John Kerry’s tenure as secretary of state. Twitter https://twitter.com/mviser
By Yasmeen Abutaleb
Yasmeen Abutaleb joined The Washington Post in 2019 as a national reporter covering health policy, with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services, health policy on Capitol Hill and health care in politics. She previously covered health care for Reuters, with a focus on the Affordable Care Act, federal health programs and drug pricing. Twitter https://twitter.com/yabutaleb7
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