He has played down President Trump’s pet theories on COVID-19, gently dismissed what the boss held out as a possible “game changer” cure, and distanced himself from suggestions favored by White House allies that the virus may have emerged by accident from a Chinese laboratory.
Yet Dr. Anthony Fauci has survived demands that he be fired from Trump’s coronavirus task force, thanks in part to a warm personal relationship with the president, according to insiders.
A senior administration official, familiar with the dynamics of task force meetings, said Trump felt a sense of kinship with a fellow New Yorker from the outer boroughs.
“I think he does,” said the official. “They get along great in person.”
The president frequently cites his childhood growing up in Queens to burnish his outsider credentials with evidence that he did not share the trappings of a Manhattan childhood. Fauci grew up in an Italian neighborhood of Brooklyn.
His outer-borough accent has been something of a mainstay on cable news as he discusses the latest scientific data.
The result is a burst of Faucimania. A bewigged Brad Pitt portrayed the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Saturday Night Live, and fans can buy a bobblehead figure cast in his honor.
Such fame, not to mention failure to toe the party line, has frequently been the downfall of Trump confidants. Steve Bannon departed the White House amid reports that his briefing of journalists and presence on magazine covers angered the president.
Others, such as John Bolton, former national security adviser, Jim Mattis, secretary of defense, and Dan Coates, director of national intelligence, left their posts amid disagreements, sometimes private and sometimes very public.
Fauci has not been shy of contradicting or dismissing theories pushed by other key players in public.
In an interview published on Monday with National Geographic, he was asked about the theory that the coronavirus pandemic could have begun with an accidental leak from a collection of bat viruses stored at a laboratory in Wuhan. The idea has gained credence among China hawks and was pushed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the weekend.
“But that means it was in the wild, to begin with,” said Fauci. “That’s why I don’t get what they’re talking about [and] why I don’t spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.”
He has frequently been asked how he survives when he has directly contradicted some of Trump’s most rosy assessments, such as rejecting evidence of the benefits of hydroxychloroquine as “anecdotal” or warning of dark days ahead just as the president planned a Fourth of July celebration.
“I feel I have a moral obligation to give the kind of information that I am giving,” he told CNN. “People are going to make their own choices. I cannot, nor anybody, force people under every circumstance to do what you’d think is best.”
A White House official said Fauci’s scientifically rooted skepticism made him a vital part of the team.
“I think sometimes the healthcare experts are going to offer a more dour assessment as a matter of precaution, like my personal doctor,” he said.
Yet the stance has made him target No. 1 among some conservative commentators, who accuse him of thwarting the president’s instincts to reopen the country rapidly. The sentiment spiraled when he said in an interview that earlier interventions might have helped stem the spread of the virus.
Last month, Trump stirred speculation that Fauci was on his way out by retweeting a demand for the scientist’s dismissal.
It brought a quick reversal.
“Today, I walk in, I hear I’m going to fire him,” said the president during one of his daily White House briefings. “I’m not firing him. I think he is a wonderful guy.”
