Every time I think I’m out on Matty, he pulls me back in.
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1353364721735528451?s=21
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So New York State didn’t have any charges ready to file? Didn’t he cheat on state taxes at least?
Yeah. I know it’s been about 3 business days, but what the fuck are they waiting for.
The only thing I can think of is that filing them now might reduce the pressure on GOP senators to convict.
I don’t think that’s a good reason, but I could imagine someone thinking that.
Slap some charges on him and take away his passport before it’s too late.
(I don’t really care that much as long as he can never get into office again.)
New York is going to have to ask Florida to do that for them, right? I don’t see Florida going along with that.
I think they need the US State Department to take away a passport. Probably a court order to make that happen? In a federal court I would think. Just guessing.
We might need a lawbro on this, but based on my extensive viewing of various Law and Order series, non-Federal courts confiscate passports all the time.
If Trump really wants to leave, he probably doesn’t need a passport. He can just take his private jet to Moscow and ask for asylum.
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It was always unlikely they would charge him with criminal charges.
I guess he got rid of the 737?
When did you first realize things were going wrong between you and President Trump?
It coincided very much with the rapid escalation of cases in the northeastern part of the country, particularly the New York metropolitan area. I would try to express the gravity of the situation, and the response of the president was always leaning toward, “Well, it’s not that bad, right?” And I would say, “Yes, it is that bad.” It was almost a reflex response, trying to coax you to minimize it. Not saying, “I want you to minimize it,” but, “Oh, really, was it that bad?”
And the other thing that made me really concerned was, it was clear that he was getting input from people who were calling him up, I don’t know who, people he knew from business, saying, “Hey, I heard about this drug, isn’t it great?” or, “Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal.” And I would try to, you know, calmly explain that you find out if something works by doing an appropriate clinical trial; you get the information, you give it a peer review. And he’d say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this stuff really works.”
…
There was a point last February when things changed. Alex Azar was running the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and then suddenly Mike Pence was, and President Trump was at the podium taking the questions and arguing with reporters. What happened?
To be totally honest with you, I don’t know. We were having, you know, the standard kind of scientifically based, public-health-based meetings. Then I started getting anxious that this was not going in the right direction — the anecdotally driven situations, the minimization, the president surrounding himself with people saying things that didn’t make any scientific sense. We would say things like: “This is an outbreak. Infectious diseases run their own course unless one does something to intervene.” And then he would get up and start talking about, “It’s going to go away, it’s magical, it’s going to disappear.”
That’s when it became clear to me: I’m not going to proactively go out and volunteer my contradiction of what the president said. But he would say something that clearly was not correct, and then a reporter would say, “Well, let’s hear from Dr. Fauci.” I would have to get up and say, “No, I’m sorry, I do not think that is the case.” It isn’t like I took any pleasure in contradicting the president of the United States. I have a great deal of respect for the office. But I made a decision that I just had to. Otherwise I would be compromising my own integrity, and be giving a false message to the world. If I didn’t speak up, it would be almost tacit approval that what he was saying was OK.
Is it really that hard? Get over yourself dude
There were a couple of times where I would make a statement that was a pessimistic viewpoint about what direction we were going, and the president would call me up and say, “Hey, why aren’t you more positive? You’ve got to take a positive attitude. Why are you so negativistic? Be more positive.”
Did he say why? People were dying. Someone he knew died early on.
No. I didn’t get into the whys or anything. He would get on the phone and express disappointment in me that I was not being more positive.
…
Were you ever shot at or confronted?
No, but one day I got a letter in the mail, I opened it up and a puff of powder came all over my face and my chest.
That was very, very disturbing to me and my wife because it was in my office. So I just looked at it all over me and said, “What do I do?” The security detail was there, and they’re very experienced in that. They said, “Don’t move, stay in the room.” And they got the hazmat people. So they came, they sprayed me down and all that.
Did they test the powder?
Yeah. It was a benign nothing. But it was frightening. My wife and my children were more disturbed than I was. I looked at it somewhat fatalistically. It had to be one of three things: A hoax. Or anthrax, which meant I’d have to go on Cipro for a month. Or if it was ricin, I was dead, so bye-bye.
Was Mr. Trump told?
I have no idea.
…
Let me ask: Do you think Donald Trump cost the country tens or hundreds of thousands of lives?
I can’t comment on that. People always ask that and … making the direct connection that way, it becomes very damning. I just want to stay away from that. Sorry.
Douche
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me, head of niaid: “donald trump is a mass murderer”
Heavy disagree with all that. Not his responsibility or really even helpful for him to blame Trump. He’s trying to save lives and antagonizing Trump will cause less people to get the vaccine. I’m happy he’s the head and not someone who would choose your course of action
How would Fauci quitting his job/speaking publicly about this stuff while it was happening cause less people to get a vaccine?
because he probably would have been replaced by some trump sycophant
I guess I need to know more about Fauci’s direct role in vaccine development to judge whether his staying silent did more good than harm.
Yep, textbook example of my pet theory that America means two wholly separate things to liberals and conservatives.
The CDC changed their guidelines so that it was deemed unnecessary for an asymptomatic person with close contact with known positives to get a COVID test while Fauci was undergoing surgery. That makes it seem likely that Fauci staying in place did more good than allowing him to be replaced by a Trump supporter, but I don’t know whether that good extended to vaccine development. I would assume that he was a voice for sticking to established procedures and norms and avoiding risky shortcuts and PR moves.
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