Former President Barack Obama privately derided President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. in response to their mismanagement and rhetoric while America was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to diary entries written by Dr. Anthony Fauci in November 2021.
Fauci’s diary was released by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as part of hearings conducted by the GOP earlier this week in which Fauci was attacked and criticized for management of the outbreak, which began during Trump’s first term.
Fauci recorded notes of a phone call he had with Obama where the two men discussed Trump Jr. selling T-shirts and hoodies with the slogan “Fauci Kills Puppies,” based on the false claim that Fauci’s office had funded experiments on dogs with diseased sand flies.
“Obama said That Donald Trump junior is ‘A fucking moron’,” Fauci wrote, adding that the former president “apologized for using crude language.”
President Donald Trump removes his face mask to speak from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House in October 2020.AP
Fauci further noted that Obama “went on to say that Donald Trump was a hopeless idiot who was a pathologic liar.”
Fauci also wrote that Obama was “very upset that none of the moderate Republicans were actually speaking out on my behalf and were distancing themselves from all of this terrible slanderous behavior against me.”
Republicans have been trying to cast Fauci as the main villain of the COVID-19 era, attempting to make the public forget that it is Trump who promoted falsehoods and misinformation about the virus. It was Trump, not Fauci, who furthered the nonsensical notion that sunlight could burn away COVID. And it was Trump, not Fauci, who suggested that Americans inject themselves with disinfectant to ward off the virus.
In contrast to his immediate successor, Obama used his platform during the outbreak to advise the public to listen to the science and the experts on medical issues working domestically and with international organizations.
“Protect yourself and your community from coronavirus with common sense precautions: wash your hands, stay home when sick and listen to the @CDCgov and local health authorities. Save the masks for health care workers. Let’s stay calm, listen to the experts, and follow the science,” Obama wrote in March 2020, when there was a shortage of medical masks.
Fauci’s diary entry isn’t the damning evidence of scientific malfeasance that so many Republicans seem to want it to be. It is, in fact, a real-time reminder that Obama, like most of America and the world, thought the Trump family’s behavior and rhetoric was abhorrent—especially during a global crisis.
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