With the death toll from the coronavirus nearing 150,000, President Trump whined today at his "briefing" that his ratings for dealing with the pandemic are low because "nobody likes me."
The comment came when he was asked about his relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist whose approval ratings among the public are nearly twice that recorded by Trump.
"It’s interesting. He’s got a very good approval rating, and I like that. It’s good," Trump said. "Because, remember, he’s working for this administration. He’s working with us. We could’ve gotten other people. We could’ve gotten somebody else. It didn't have to be Dr. Fauci. He's working with our administration, and for the most part, we've done pretty much what he and others ... recommended."
"He’s got this high approval rating, so why don’t I have a high approval rating ... with respect to the virus?" Trump asked.
"It sort of is curious," Trump said. "A man works for us, with us, very closely, Dr. Fauci and Dr. [Deborah] Birx, also highly thought of, and yet they're highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That’s all."
A Quinnipiac University poll released July 15 showed 67 percent of respondents do not trust Trump's information regarding coronavirus, while 65 percent said they trust information provided by Fauci.
While we need a president laser focused on developing and executing a national strategy to quell this pandemic, we have one who is school-girl jealous of the one person Americans trust more perhaps than any other.
What apparently really galled Trump was the fact that Fauci threw out the first pitch for the Washington Nationals home opener. So he announced that he would be doing the same thing at Yankee Stadium August 15.
Uhh, the Yankees said, "News to us."
So Trump backtracked yesterday and said he was too busy dealing with the "China virus."
Back to Hydroxychloroquine
Speaking of the China virus, Trump continued to push hydroxychloroquine, that magic drug that he says is effective in treating covid-19, even though Fauci and other scientists have cited studies that have shown the drug can do more harm than good when used to treat symptoms of the virus.
But members of America's Frontline Doctors, a group of Trump supporting physicians, argued for its use at a Monday news conference in Washington, citing their own experiences treating patients with the drug. The news conference and resulting viral video was organized by Tea Party Patriots Action, a dark money group that has helped fund a pro-Trump political action committee.
Trump then shared the video on Facebook and Twitter, but both companies then removed the content to keep their sites free of harmful information about the virus -- but not before more than 17 million people had seen it.
Trump complained at today's briefing that the tweets had been removed and said he didn't understand why. Guess he didn't see the statement from Facebook spokesman Andy Stone, who said the video shares "false information about cures and treatments for covid-19."
In the video, Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Houston physician, promotes the drug as a cure for the coronavirus, claiming to have successfully treated 350 people “and counting" -- including older patients and some with underlying medical conditions.
“You don’t need masks, there is a cure,” Immanuel says in the video. In another video shared widely on Twitter by a pro-Trump nonprofit, Immanuel claims Fauci and CNN anchors are secretly taking hydroxychloroquine and challenges them to give her a urine sample.
But Dr. Fauci, the man who Trump apparently is so jealous of he can't see straight, told ABC's Good Morning America last Tuesday, "I go along with the FDA. The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease."
Just think. In 98 days we will have an opportunity to rid this country of the whining child who currently occupies our White House.