Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of America’s Finest Public Servants

His ability to navigate the Trump administration also makes him one of the most effective

Andy Slavitt
Medium Coronavirus Blog
4 min readMay 15, 2020

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Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

The attacks on Anthony Fauci are a misplaced hit job and it’s actually dangerous. In some circles, the accusation that Dr. Fauci (who has served under six US Presidents — four of them Republicans) is a partisan, is what passes for evidence that he is out to bring Trump down.

Anthony Fauci’s only deep interest in politics is avoiding it.

In 1985, then Vice President George HW Bush didn’t think he was partisan. Fauci’s passion was researching cures to HIV/AIDS. George W Bush didn’t think so either, awarding Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

What Fauci is, is one of the world’s leading experts in infectious diseases and the body’s immune system. Before Covid-19, he was at the forefront of our response to HIV, SARS, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, MERS and Ebola. Some would say a handy guy to have around.

What is Fauci being accused of?

  1. Being wrong and not being all-knowing
  2. Purposely shutting down the economy
  3. Being political — which would be a new development

If you want to go after scientists for being wrong during the inquiry process, you’ve lost before you’ve started. That is the inquiry process.

If you count how many times Fauci has said, “we don’t know”, “we think”, “our best guess”, etc., it would be hard. When he says he knows something. He knows it.

If you think Fauci is purposely shutting down the economy, you’re picking on the wrong guy. Fauci says frequently that he’s not an economic expert and doesn’t give the president economic advice.

Truthfully he won’t speak ill of Trump even if he doesn’t care for him. He doesn’t feel that’s his job. He gives his best advice based on what he knows. He’s 79 and thinks a lot about getting his job done.

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Andy Slavitt
Medium Coronavirus Blog

Former Medicare, Medicaid & ACA head for Pres. Barack Obama. https://twitter.com/ASlavitt