BRUTAL DeSantis campaign ad rips Trump for not firing Fauci

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/DeSantisWarRoom/status/1665799058303188992

[deb]

Fauci. The epitome of Deep State.
Trump. The Deep State slayer. 

[Smokin Joe]

"You can't win..."
"There would have been a firestorm on the Left..."
"I would have taken heat..."

Seven years of defending himself, and taking nothing but heat in a ginned up firestorm from the Left, but the health and well being of the country is at stake and he didn't act because of the above?

Good ad. Provokes thought.

[libertybele]

What a great ad!  Facui a wonderful guy?  Most of us know differently and most of us know that he was deeply involved in not only unleashing COVID on the world but also the COVID 'scare' -- remember -- we needed to flatten the curve b.s.???

He is evil and responsible for millions of deaths!!

[DefiantMassRINO]

Let the GOP circular firing squad commence!

[libertybele]

Let the GOP circular firing squad commence!

IMHO it is unfortunate that this is happening, but it's good to see DeSantis firing back.  Trump threw the first punches. 

[DB]

Where's the buck's stop?

[Kamaji]

Let the GOP circular firing squad commence!

Uhh, that started a while back, with Tumpie.

[Lando Lincoln]

Trump threw the first punches.

But those early punches by Mr. Trump were so clever, witty and smart.

[libertybele]

But those early punches by Mr. Trump were so clever, witty and smart.

Clever?  I recall smears and lies.   

[Lando Lincoln]

Clever?  I recall smears and lies.   

In Mr. Trump’s world, those are the same things.

[bigheadfred]

Technically, Trump couldn't fire Fauci. It was up to the director of NIH.

Something about that here.

On Sunday, during an interview with CBS News, Dr. Francis Collins, the outgoing director of the National Institutes of Health, admitted that Trump and other Republicans pressured him to promote unproven COVID-19 treatments, like hydroxychloroquine, and, more shockingly, to fire Dr. Fauci. However, as he said during the CBS News interview, Dr. Collins resisted these political pressures at every turn. 

"I have done everything I can to stay out of any kind of political, partisan debates because it is really not a place where medical research belongs," Dr. Collins told CBS News, per CNN. "I was not going to compromise scientific principles to just hold onto the job. ... Can you imagine a circumstance where the director of the NIH, somebody who believes in science, would submit to political pressures and fire the greatest expert in infectious disease that the world has known, just to satisfy political concerns?"

Read More: https://www.thelist.com/712729/did-donald-trump-really-try-to-get-dr-fauci-fired/

[DB]

The "science"... What total crap. There was no science involved with masks, lock downs or the 6 foot rule - which was totally arbitrary.

And if only she could fire Fauci then Trump could fire her and the replacement fire Fauci.

These idiots did massive damage. It was criminal. And the thousands who died alone and were denied both proper healthcare and their family should burn in hell.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

What's amazing to me is that Trump is defending himself on the grounds that "there would have been a firestorm from the left."

So what?!?!  Isn't one of the major reasons he was elected was because he would do what was right, regardless of whether or not the left got mad at him?  Fauci ruined millions of lives.   But Trump not only kept him in, but actually gave him an award because Trump's own personal popularity was more important to him than doing the right thing.

No wonder he didn't "drain the swamp", right?  Same freaking logic would have applied.  Trump cared more about his chances at being re-elected than on protecting the people he was sworn to protect.

A truly despicable human being.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Technically, Trump couldn't fire Fauci. It was up to the director of NIH.

Something about that here.

That's a lame excuse.  He could have fired the Director of NIH had he wanted. 

But more importantly, he didn't have to fire Fauci from his job as a federal employee anyway.  All he had to do was remove him as the Administration spokesman and put someone else in charge of Administration guidance and policy, and that was up to Trump himself.  Fauci would have kept his pay and formal title, but been sidelined.  Trump didn't do that because he didn't want to make waves given the upcoming 2020 election.  He figured if he just went along with those particular experts were telling him, he couldn't be blamed politically.

[libertybele]

It would have taken quite a process, but Trump still could have fired Fauci or at least disputed what Fauci was saying.  Trump would have had to have gone up against he deep state, the lies, the WHO, the CDC, etc.  Regardless, Trump did nothing, said nothing and went along with Fauci.  Trump did NOTHING to protect us from the lies.  Techinically he could have started the process -- but let's remember that the person prosecuting Trump with Russia collusion was Rosenstein.  His niece Nancy Messonnier served as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2021.  Something to be considered and obviously Trump knew what was going on!

Under current law and regulation, Trump would need to show that Fauci either was incompetent or was guilty of misconduct. And Trump couldn’t fire Fauci directly. He would need to order his Health and Human Services secretary and the director of the National Institutes of Health to do it.

Assuming his superiors went along with Trump’s order, if Fauci declined to go quietly, he could appeal.

"I’d almost dare Trump to try," said New York University public service professor Paul Light. "If he wants to find out how resistant this system can be, let him find out."

Fauci’s first step would be an appeal to the Merit System Protection Board, a body created in 1978 to stand between civil servants and the actions of the political appointees who oversee them. That 1978 law — passed in response to a set of Nixon administration tactics aimed at driving unwanted civil servants out of their positions — gave senior civil servants such as Fauci even more protections than your run-of-the-mill government employee.

"If he didn’t get satisfaction with the board, he could take his case to a federal circuit court," Light said.

There’s a hitch, however.

"At this point, the Merit System Protection Board is nonfunctional because it has no members," said University of Texas at Austin public affairs professor Donald Kettl.

That would put Fauci in a bind. Without an appeals board — and the members are confirmed by the Senate — he would be out of a job pending a board decision.

Kettl and Light agree that if Fauci could appeal, Trump would face long odds charging Fauci with misconduct or poor performance.

"That is a case that would be very, very difficult to make, given his performance over the last eight months and his extraordinary stature in the public health community," Kettl said.

Trump would face the additional hurdle of getting Fauci’s superiors to go along..........

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/nov/02/can-donald-trump-fire-anthony-fauci/

[cato potatoe]

If we have another pandemic, germaphobe Donald Trump will elevate more tyrants like Fauci and fund lockdowns with more debt.  There will be more employer-mandated clot shots.  He will side with the likes of Hochul and Newsom over Kemp and DeSantis.  Donald has learned nothing from his experience.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

It would have taken quite a process, but Trump still could have fired Fauci or at least disputed what Fauci was saying.  Trump would have had to have gone up against he deep state, the lies, the WHO, the CDC, etc.  Regardless, Trump did nothing, said nothing and went along with Fauci.  Trump did NOTHING to protect us from the lies.  Techinically he could have started the process -- but let's remember that the person prosecuting Trump with Russia collusion was Rosenstein.  His niece Nancy Messonnier served as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2021.  Something to be considered and obviously Trump knew what was going on!

Under current law and regulation, Trump would need to show that Fauci either was incompetent or was guilty of misconduct. And Trump couldn’t fire Fauci directly. He would need to order his Health and Human Services secretary and the director of the National Institutes of Health to do it.

Assuming his superiors went along with Trump’s order, if Fauci declined to go quietly, he could appeal.

"I’d almost dare Trump to try," said New York University public service professor Paul Light. "If he wants to find out how resistant this system can be, let him find out."

Fauci’s first step would be an appeal to the Merit System Protection Board, a body created in 1978 to stand between civil servants and the actions of the political appointees who oversee them. That 1978 law — passed in response to a set of Nixon administration tactics aimed at driving unwanted civil servants out of their positions — gave senior civil servants such as Fauci even more protections than your run-of-the-mill government employee.

"If he didn’t get satisfaction with the board, he could take his case to a federal circuit court," Light said.

There’s a hitch, however.

"At this point, the Merit System Protection Board is nonfunctional because it has no members," said University of Texas at Austin public affairs professor Donald Kettl.

That would put Fauci in a bind. Without an appeals board — and the members are confirmed by the Senate — he would be out of a job pending a board decision.

Kettl and Light agree that if Fauci could appeal, Trump would face long odds charging Fauci with misconduct or poor performance.

"That is a case that would be very, very difficult to make, given his performance over the last eight months and his extraordinary stature in the public health community," Kettl said.

Trump would face the additional hurdle of getting Fauci’s superiors to go along..........

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/nov/02/can-donald-trump-fire-anthony-fauci/

Again, "firing" in the context you're using it means getting rid of him as a federal employee -- literally losing his job.

Trump didn't have to do that, though.  Trump had the absolute discretion to decide who was going to be the spokesman for the Administration on Covid policy.  It's just like in the military.  I couldn't "fire" a poor-performing subordinate in the sense of booting him out of the Marine Corps, but I absolutely could relieve him of specific responsibilities and have a him ride a desk all day if I so chose.  Keep his rank and pay, but just not doing his prior tasks.  There's no appeal process for that.

[libertybele]

If we have another pandemic, germaphobe Donald Trump will elevate more tyrants like Fauci and fund lockdowns with more debt.  There will be more employer-mandated clot shots.  He will side with the likes of Hochul and Newsom over Kemp and DeSantis.  Donald has learned nothing from his experience.

@cato potatoe he ultimately left it up to the states, however, you are correct -- the lockdowns cost us tremendously in many ways.  Though Trump would have had to jump through hoops and hurdles, he did NOTHING to point out the wrongs of Fauci and his involvement with the 'gain of function' research that even Obammy shut down. 

Trump played along with the game.

[bigheadfred]

“I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said on March 14, 2020.

DeSantis, like Trump, later broke with Fauci over reopening Florida in July 2020, but he didn’t begin regularly harshly criticizing Fauci until spring 2021.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/ron-desantis-fauci-trump-covid-kfile/index.html

[Wingnut]

But those early punches by Mr. Trump were so clever, witty and smart.

Only to be surpassed by the wit of a grade school bully.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

“I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said on March 14, 2020.

DeSantis, like Trump, later broke with Fauci over reopening Florida in July 2020, but he didn’t begin regularly harshly criticizing Fauci until spring 2021.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/ron-desantis-fauci-trump-covid-kfile/index.html

Uh, sure.  In early March, that was the only reasonable course of action because the disease had no track record.  But anyone who could read and look at numbers would have known within the first couple months that the initial projections about Covid mortality were wildly wrong.  So the smart folks took into account that new evidence, and adjusted accordingly.

Whereas Trump, being someone who neither reads nor is particularly smart, changed nothing about the Administration's approach despite mountains of evidence.

[Hoodat]

“I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said on March 14, 2020.

DeSantis, like Trump, later broke with Fauci over reopening Florida in July 2020, but he didn’t begin regularly harshly criticizing Fauci until spring 2021.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/ron-desantis-fauci-trump-covid-kfile/index.html

Looks like CNN has chosen a side.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

It's always better to see what was being said at the time rather than listening to those trying to rewrite history.  This is from July 11, 2020:

Florida Governor Responds After Fauci's Remark About State Reopening Too Soon, Says There's 'No Justification to Not Move Forward'

The governor of Florida defended his decision to reopen the state, after the nation's top infectious disease expert suggested Florida had rushed its reopening amid a surge of coronavirus cases seen since mid-June.

"I think there was really no justification to not move forward," said Governor Ron DeSantis at a news conference in Orlando Friday.

DeSantis responded after comments made the day before by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top adviser on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

"Despite the guidelines and the recommendations to open up carefully and prudently, some states skipped over those and just opened up too quickly," Fauci said Thursday on FiveThirtyEight's PODCAST-19. "Certainly Florida...I think jumped over a couple of checkpoints."

DeSantis said Friday that in the initial weeks after the state had first opened in May, positive coronavirus test results in Florida were trending under 5 percent.

"This is a virus that has a five-day incubation period," he said. "So it wouldn't take six weeks before you started seeing something if [reopening] were the cause [of the surge]."  The state reported 11,385 new coronavirus cases and 93 new deaths on July 10 — the second-highest reported numbers in Florida yet, according to data from the state's Department of Health.

Florida was one of the last states to impose a stay-at-home order when the crisis first hit the U.S. in March, and one of the first to reopen.

DeSantis allowed most of the state on May 18 to move into its full phase 1 of reopening, which included restaurants, gyms, hair salons and large spectator sporting events, with reduced capacity.  On Saturday, Orlando's Walt Disney World continued with its plans to reopen to the public for the first time in 117 days. Those with advance reservations could visit the Magic Kingdom or the Animal Kingdom.

Live updates published Saturday morning by the Orlando Sentinel showed dozens of cars lining up 40 minutes before the parks officially opened.  During the news conference Friday, DeSantis had pointed out that the "rest of the Sun Belt" is also currently dealing with spikes in coronavirus cases and transmission.  "Los Angeles didn't exactly open very soon there, they're seeing it," he said. "Texas, Georgia, Arizona, South Carolina — so this is something that we're dealing with. We're in a better position to deal with it."

Then there's the schools in Florida, where in July 2020, DeSantis threatened districts if they did not reopen:

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/07/09/gov-ron-desantis-doubles-down-on-schools-reopening-full-time-in-august/

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Also is worth a reminded that Trump gave Presidential Commendations to General Mark Milley and Fauci on January 19 -- the day before he left office.

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-trump-awards-presidential-commendations-operation-warp-speed-team/